New Delhi [India], Mar 14 : Strengthening its commitment to foster innovation and entrepreneurship, the Department of Science and Technology launched the India Innovation Growth Programme 2.0 on Saturday.

The programme has been running since 2007 with the support of Lockheed Martin Corporation and has supported close to 500 innovators, start-ups, creating an economic value of approx. USD 900 million.

The programme has been administered by the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum and implemented by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

Through a wide outreach campaign undertaken by FICCI over the last 10

years, spreading over 100 cities across India, the Programme has received and evaluated over 7000 ideas so far. In addition to building entrepreneurs, more than 50 incubation managers from India have been trained in the US on global best practices on incubation and commercialization and this has been possible.

Under the IIGP 2.0, Tata Trusts have come on board to support and scale social innovations. IIGP 2.0, will have two separate challenges viz.

University Challenge and the Open Innovation Challenge to support innovations across industrial and social sectors. The program shall provide funding, capacity building, mentoring, incubation and business development support to the innovators, helping them scale their ventures to the next level.

"FICCI is proud to have been a partner of the India Innovation Growth Programme since it's' inception in 2007. With over 500 innovations supported, the exemplary work undertaken is noteworthy. Inclusion of new partners is a welcome addition as the programme grows from strength to strength. We remain committed to building on the tremendous success of the last decade in fostering and accelerating Indian technological innovations into the global marketplace," said President FICCI, Pankaj Patel.

"Over the last 10 years, the India Innovation Growth Programme has grown to be one of India's foremost technology acceleration platforms. FICCI strives to provide an entire ecosystem to the startups through diversified programs such as the IIGP, XLr8AP, Google digital unlocked certification program to meet the varied needs of startups in India. We work closely with innovators through various phases, from ideation to commercialization. Moving into the next decade, we remain confident of the continued growth and success of the IIGP in its' new avatar," said Secretary General FICCI, Dr. Didar Singh.

Several of the IIGP innovators have been further scaled through the XLr8AP Program of Government of Andhra Pradesh, FICCI and University of Texas.

An IIGP awardee, Sameer Panda has invented a tyre with burst-preventive puncture-curative technology and stated that the Xlr8 program with his commercialization strategy and is soon planning to set up a manufacturing unit in Renigunta.

A number of high impact social enterprises selected under the IIGP have also been supported under the Millennium Alliance Program being implemented by FICCI. One such enterprise is Aakar innovations who has developed a ~100% compostable menstrual hygiene solution providing affordable pads to adolescent girls and women. This is done using a unique low cost, low electricity consuming machine that produces 1200-2400pads/8-10 hrs through community participation from 12-16 women(no specific skills required) as production workforce. FICCI is now supporting Aakar to scale this technology to Kenya and Uganda.

With support from the Department of Science and Technology, FICCI recently announced an Indo - Rwanda Innovation Growth Program. The Program will deploy 20 demonstrated and validated Indian technologies and innovations over a period of two years. The joint programs/ventures created with Rwandan partners will deliver at least 20 sustainable social enterprises that will stimulate economic impact development in Rwanda. (ANI)