CENTRE FOR INNOVATION
AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
AT IIIT HYDERABAD
Fostering DeepTech Innovation
Cover story
Maruti Suzuki Innovation Team Visits CIE IIIT Hyderabad
CIE IIIT Hyderabad hosted the innovation team from Maruti Suzuki in April as part of its ongoing efforts to strengthen industry engagement within the startup ecosystem.
The interaction brought together startups incubated at CIE working across domains such as mobility, artificial intelligence, automation, and sustainability. Startups from the CIE portfolio showcased their solutions and engaged in discussions around real-world applications, product scalability, and potential collaboration opportunities aligned with evolving industry requirements.
The visit enabled an exchange of perspectives between industry and startups, providing founders with insights into market expectations and emerging trends in mobility and technology-led innovation. It also created opportunities to explore pathways for collaboration across research, product development, and deployment.
Such engagements continue to strengthen CIE’s role as a platform connecting research-driven startups with industry, enabling the translation of innovation into scalable and market-relevant solutions.
Happenings @ CIE
T-Health Cafe
The April 24th edition of T Health Cafe brought together founders exploring opportunities in healthcare for an insightful session with Dr. Khizer Hussain Junaidy. He shared practical learnings on how building and selling in healthcare is very different from other sectors, highlighting the challenges of working with clinicians and navigating the ecosystem. The discussion emphasized that healthcare isn’t just another market it requires startups to focus on real-world needs, support doctors rather than compete with them, and prioritize patient care over ROI, while maintaining credibility and discipline. A key takeaway was that MedTech startups often don’t fail because of poor technology, but because they struggle to bridge the gap with clinicians.
Strategy Days
The Strategy Days held on 9th and 10th brought together startups for focused sessions on understanding their customer base and refining market positioning, along with a three-month review where founders shared their progress, key milestones, and challenges with mentors and the CIE team. The discussions provided valuable feedback on sharpening target customer clarity, improving market alignment, and strengthening overall growth strategies, highlighting the importance of continuous reflection and course correction for building a clear and focused path forward.
Spotlight
TakeMe2Space Reschedules MOI-1A Launch
TakeMe2Space, a CIE IIITH incubated startup, has rescheduled the launch of its MOI-1A satellite on a SpaceX Falcon 9 mission after an earlier setback with PSLV-C62, where a launch vehicle anomaly led to the loss of the satellite. The team has since restarted development and secured a new launch opportunity, with MOI-1A now scheduled to fly on Transporter-18. Reflecting on their visit to SpaceX’s facility in Los Angeles, the team highlighted how its engineering philosophy focused on speed and frugality continues to inspire their own approach as they move forward, with the countdown now underway.
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.
Meity TIDE 2.0
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
Meet IIIT Hyderabad’s Young Researcher With The Breakthrough Proposal to Build India’s Own AI Chip
With the establishment of Anusandhan Research Foundation (ANRF) via an Act of Parliament in 2023, the research landscape in India has seen a significant impetus. Recognising that early career researchers are committed to produce research of the highest quality, bringing in new skills, breakthrough ideas and the zest to explore new frontiers, ANRF considers its responsibility to empower and support the early career researchers in their pursuit of research excellence, providing them an enabling environment to effectively conduct research with ease and flexibility with a generous grant of around 60 lakhs over 3 years.
IIIT-H’s next-gen drones turn chaos into control
Hyderabad: IIIT Hyderabad’s Drone Lab is pioneering adaptive drone technologies that embrace uncertainty rather than eliminate it. From flood relief to agriculture, the lab’s innovations are redefining drone design. According to IIITH, the Robotics Research Centre conducts experiments under Spandan Roy that challenge traditional engineering assumptions by asking: “Even if you don’t know the system, can you still control it?”
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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