MADURAI: The State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT) is getting all set to establish a state-of-the-art Industrial Innovation Centre in Madurai with an objective of fostering innovation and supporting the growth of technology-based startups.
This comes following the announcement made by Government of Tamil Nadu during the budget session for 2024-25.
SIPCOT proposes to set up industrial innovation centre in Madurai (area of 26,500 Sq.ft) at a cost of Rs.24 crores by availing a grant of Rs.10 crores from Tamil Nadu Innovation Initiatives Scheme under State Planning Commission.
As an important step in that direction, SIPCOT had today conducted a stakeholders meeting in Madurai on Thursday- August 1st 2024- with the support of StartupTN to identify the focus areas from various stakeholders, according to a press release here today.
Dr.K.Senthil Raj IAS, Managing Director of SIPCOT, had highlighted the Government’s focus on industries in and around Madurai district while Mr.Sivarajah, Misison Director and CEO of StartupTN gave insights on the need for innovation centre in Madurai so that it will be a trigger for industrial development in southern districts.
The proposed centre will act as a centre of excellence for advanced digital production technologies for contrinuous process manufacturing, sustainable energy, fuels and resources, climate change resilience and reversal, food production and processing digital transformation etc.
Mr.Vish Sahasranamam, Co-Founder and CEO, Forge, gave an overview of innovation centres that have been already established at Hosur and Sriperumbudur, the press release said. Members from CII-Madurai, Tamil Nadu Chamber of Commerce, MADITSSIA, Digitall Forum, SIDA (Software Industrial Development Association) and Agro Food Trade Centre etc had attended the meeting in Madurai on August 1st 2024 with focus on infrastructure requirements, collaboration opportunities and stakeholder engagement strategies.
The centre will have co-working spaces for innovators, startups, industry 4.0 equipment, product development centre, prototyping facilities and training centre, evaluation facility for 500 plus innovative ideas, training session facilities and students’ orientation etc.
