StartupNews.in

The Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship at IIM Ahmedabad supported by UpStart.in, Nokia and Microsoft is organizing iAccelerator 2009, an intensive startup company assistance program geared towards first time technology entrepreneurs in India in the ICT domain.

iAccelerator works with brilliant first time entrepreneurs to establish well run, technically excellent, profitable technology companies in India. CIIE will use its experience in setting up companies, their business network and their money to ensure that companies working with them are well formed and have access to the people and information they need to be successful. iAccelerator will also invest up to Rs 5 Lakh in each company they work with. All participants are required to live and work from Ahmedabad for 4 months from May 1 through Sept 1. In addition to developing their products during this time, participants meet with industry veterans, learn new technologies, share what they are working on and have a great time.

Over time, CIIE has realized that the biggest problem that their incubatees face is that the promoters are tech people and find understanding and handling business aspects to be quite an effort. So, they have introduced the concept of Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR). These EIRs are people who want to be entrepreneurs, have basic understanding of technology but more importantly, have industry experience or managerial backgrounds. Not only do they come in early and help CIIE pick out the right startups, they also try and form a startup team by either joining in with a startup or finding the right people to work with for their business idea.

Amit, Premnath, Pankaj and Shivam will be studying the ICT space and generating interesting ideas and working towards creating an Innovative Enterprise in the segment of their interest.

“iAccelerator is a platform for young entrepreneurs to structure, build and implement innovations in next generation technological space” says Premnath – Selected to be an EIR. He did his MBA from FMS in Delhi and has almost 4 years of work experience. Currently, he is working with a Swedish Telecom Application Provider.

Pankaj – Selected to be an EIR. He is a Marketing and Business Development professional with over seven years of work experience. He has worked on and learned a great deal from several very interesting and diverse marketing assignments in Retail, Telecom and Healthcare sectors. His last assignment was with a diversified group in UAE as Head – Marketing & Business Development before he decided to take the entrepreneurial route.
He says, “EIR program made it easy for me to jump into the entrepreneurial bandwagon as it provides an ideal platform for budding entrepreneurs.”

“This is an amazing opportunity for non-resident professionals like me who are looking to come back to India an start a technology venture”, says Shivam. He studied computer engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology and is currently working on WiMAX technology with Motorola. He is interested in innovation in the Indian Telecom sector and specifically in wireless broadband infrastructure.

He previously led a start-up venture in college that created interactive educational content for mobile platforms. The venture won a number of business plan competitions in the US, including the 2007 Chicago Sun Times Innovation Awards.

Freeman, the Founder – Director Upstart.in is excited to work with young entrepreneurs in India, creating the next generation of internet and mobile startups

He is a software engineer from Silicon Valley who has been a part of a number of tech startups in the USA and India, including one very successful one which he founded and sold to Excite@Home in 2000.

“We will handhold the teams which come in and help them get their business up and running. With help from faculty, alumni, our mentor network and industry support, we hope to help these startups transform the innovation landscape in India.” Pranay, Joint CEO. CIIE