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Maker Village is planning to associate with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) by launching pioneering schemes that promote entrepreneurship and innovation.
As the country’s largest electronic hardware incubator and Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) facility, Maker Village aims to sign a pact on the project with Delhi-headquartered AICTE that functions as a statutory body under the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development.
Ahead of it, AICTE Vice-Chairman MP Poonia visited the Maker Village at Kalamassery, and held talks with top officials of the facility that has around 75 start-ups developing state-of-the-art hardware electronic products in diverse areas.
Such a collaboration with AICTE will enable Maker Village to pilot projects based on innovative ideas, thus improving the incubator’s performance level, said Prasad Balakrishnan Nair, CEO of the facility. Founded in 2016, Maker Village is a joint initiative of the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management-Kerala established by the state government.
“Connecting with AICTE’s all-India network would add tremendous value to us,” Nair noted after Poonia’s visit. “We are considering to propose to AICTE programmes that boost entrepreneurship and innovation with specific focus on deep-tech hardware products. This will be a unique differentiator for Maker Village.”
AICTE ‘impressed’
Poonia said that he was “truly impressed” by the kind of innovations and the cutting-edge products shaping up at Maker Village. The AICTE will “seriously consider” three initiatives: getting Maker Village, along with an academic institution, partner with AICTE for entrepreneurship development programmes; conducting a national-level hardware hackathon of the AICTE at Maker Village; and an AICTE Innovation ambassador programme at Maker Village.
The AICTE will explore the possibility of arriving at a broader framework of understanding for engaging with Maker Village, he added.
The start-ups in Maker Village are into developing products in areas such as automation, robotics, drones, Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, biomedical instrumentation and energy management, among others.
Source: The Hindu