CENTRE FOR INNOVATION
AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
AT IIIT HYDERABAD
Fostering DeepTech Innovation
Cover story
The June edition of Demo Day brought together startups across diverse sectors, including healthcare, advertising, retail, and sustainability, to present their innovations before a distinguished panel of venture capitalists and industry experts. The event featured an exciting lineup of startups—Vehk, CliniAura, Dynadio 3D, OnTheGoAd, Techaro, iRefill, Photom Technologies, and Leafcraft—each showcasing solutions designed to address real-world challenges.
The venture capitalists engaged with the founders through insightful discussions, evaluating their products, business models, market potential, and scalability. The conversations highlighted the growing demand for sustainable and practical solutions for everyday life, while providing startups with valuable feedback from an investor’s perspective.
The future of innovation was on full display at the Avishkar Venture Studio Final Pitching at CIE IIITH, where 20+ startups from DeepTech, MedTech, MediaTech, Mobility, and other emerging sectors took the stage to present their ideas.
Each pitch was more than a presentation—it was the result of months of problem-solving, customer validation, and relentless iteration. Founders shared their vision before a distinguished panel of 15 jury members, including IIITH faculty, industry mentors, and investors, who challenged assumptions, offered strategic insights, and provided valuable feedback to strengthen every venture.
Beyond the pitches, the event reflected what makes the CIE IIITH ecosystem unique: a place where entrepreneurs learn, collaborate, and grow alongside experts who have built and backed successful startups.
AVS wasn’t just about choosing the best ideas—it was about preparing promising founders for the next stage of their entrepreneurial journey, one insightful conversation at a time.
Happenings @ CIE
CV Labs
Organized by the CIE team, the CV Labs Agentic AI Program equipped startup founders with a practical understanding of the rapidly evolving fields of Artificial Intelligence and Agentic Systems.
The program encouraged participants to view AI not merely as a collection of tools, but as a transformative system that is reshaping the future of innovation and entrepreneurship.Throughout the program, participants gained insights into cutting-edge technologies, including Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), Model Context Protocol (MCP), Multi-Agent Systems, A2A communication, memory architectures, and AgentOps.
Mentor Cafe
The June 19th edition of Mentor Cafe brought together IIIT Hyderabad startups and experienced mentors from diverse domains, including academia and sustainable energy for an engaging discussion on “Revisiting and Understanding Go-to-Market.”
The session offered founders practical perspectives on refining their market strategies, understanding customer needs, and positioning their solutions effectively. The session reinforced that a successful go-to-market strategy goes beyond launching a product – it requires a deep understanding of the market and guidance from experienced mentors.
Pitchathon
Organised by WISE Tech and SPJIMR in collaboration with CIE, IIIT Hyderabad, the Telangana Edition of the WISE Tech India Pitchathon 2026 brought together promising startups, innovators, and industry leaders for a day of entrepreneurial excellence. The event provided a platform for founders to pitch bold ideas, showcase high-impact innovations, and engage with experts from the startup ecosystem.
With innovation taking center stage, participating startups received valuable feedback, expanded their networks, and explored opportunities for mentorship, collaboration, and investment. The Pitchathon reinforced the importance of fostering innovation-driven entrepreneurship .
Spotlight
IIIT Hyderabad’s Souvik Ghosh Makes Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia List For AI Infrastructure layer for special education
Founded in 2024 by Souvik Ghosh, Jhillika Trisal and Falguni Shrivastava. Cognitii is an AI-powered startup addressing the challenges schools face in identifying and supporting neurodivergent children. The platform helps institutions screen, track, and provide personalised support for children with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, intellectual disabilities, and other developmental conditions.
Ghosh’s entrepreneurial journey spans internships and AI consulting roles at startups including SMS Magic, TalentSprint, Upsurge Labs, Brainbox, and Sync Labs—the IIIT Hyderabad-incubated startup behind Wav2Lip, where his passion for multimodal AI took shape.
Recognising the lack of standardised screening and support systems in schools, Cognitii aims to make inclusive education more accessible and effective. The startup’s impact has already gained global recognition, winning a $ 100,000 international prize for its innovative AI-driven solution
Call For Applications
RootnodeA 3-month program that connects startups with IIIT Hyderabad’s research experts to tackle tech challenges. Get focused guidance, tech validation, and research-backed product support to strengthen your innovation.
DT CoWorkzCollaborate in a research-driven space for Gen AI, NLP, Robotics, and ML startups. Access IIITH research, expert advisory, and a thriving innovation ecosystem.
Early Stage EiR
CIE-IIITH presents MeitY TIDE 2.0, a golden opportunity for trailblazing minds in AI/ML, Blockchain, IoT, Data Science, and Robotics. Unlock mentorship and funding up to INR 7 Lakhs!
In News
IIIT Hyderabad Participates in UIDAI's Biometric SDK Benchmarking Challenge
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) successfully concluded its Face and Iris Age Variance Challenges, marking another milestone in advancing biometric technology. Conducted between December 2025 and February 2026, the challenges attracted 531 registrations from organizations across the globe, with participants evaluated through a series of comprehensive benchmarking tests. Alongside leading international companies such as Innovatrics, IDBio, and Neurotechnology, the competition also saw participation from several Indian organizations and academic institutions, including IIIT Hyderabad, Perfios, and Ooru.IIIT Hyderabad’s participation highlights the institute’s continued commitment to advancing research and innovation in biometric technologies and artificial intelligence, contributing to the development of more accurate, reliable, and inclusive digital identity solutions.
IIIT Hyderabad's AI governance reseach earns national recognition
A research study by the Human Sciences Research Centre (HSRC) at the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT-H) has shed new light on how public procurement processes are influencing the development and governance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems in India. The study recently received the Best Paper Award in the Practice Track category at the 6th India Public Policy Network (IPPN) Conference 2026.The award-winning research explores an emerging aspect of AI governance, suggesting that important decisions around AI are increasingly being shaped not only through policy discussions and regulations but also through government procurement and outsourcing practices.
Our
Impact
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15cr+
Invested in startups
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40+
Startup Research engagement
CIE at IIIT Hyderabad is a technology incubator with rich experience in seeding, nurturing, and growing deep-tech startups in emerging segments like med-tech, tech4social, visual informatics, data engineering, and machine learning, language technologies, gaming, and robotics. CIE IIITH, with a research-led innovation as its primary mandate, focuses on amplifying technology through research collaboration and co-creation models for startups to work with research groups at IIITH.
Under the CIE umbrella, there are 3 active incubators: the Deeptech incubator (Avishkar), the Medtech incubator (Ojas) & the Social incubator (AIC). CIE also includes enabling labs such as a well-equipped Maker Lab, a Medical Electronics Calibration Lab, and a AR/VR lab. IIIT Hyderabad also includes Product Labs to seed new products from research — a pre-incubation program to seed startups from research.
In the past 15 years we have grown to be the largest academic incubator in the country, have housed over 450+ startups that have raised about 250+Cr funding, and created over 2500+ jobs. Today there are very active programs focused on emerging technology startups, research-based startups, medical technologies, and social technology startups.
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