By leveraging the strengths, vast experience and exceptional track record of IIT Madras Incubation Cell (IITMIC), Sona Incubation Foundation’s Partner Incubator shall foster entrepreneurial ideas in a supportive environment to help them scale and become successful.

IITMIC and SIF recognise the importance of making successful entrepreneurs in India, and through this MoU, IITMIC extends holistic support to strengthen the incubation ecosystem at SIF and provide co-incubation support to select SIF incubatees to scale and make national impact. IITMIC will provide training, mentoring, enable networking and amplify the reach of the startups to investors, industry and potential market.  

“We are delighted to bring the first group of ‘Partner Incubators’ jointly with IITMIC to Salem to promote and support untapped creativity of individual innovators and assist them to become technology-based entrepreneurs.” says Mr Chocko Valliappa, Vice Chairman of Sona Group of Institutions.

“The Sona College of Technology and Thiagarajar Polytechnic College together have been preparing engineering talent for nearly 65 years with a key focus on R&D and Industry-Academia partnership. We now look forward to exceptional ideas from students and alumni, diverse in areas like electric mobility and wearable technology for use in healthcare,” he added.

Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala, President, IITMIC and IIT Madras Research Park said, “In an effort to support entrepreneurs in the interiors of Tamil Nadu we started our search for institutions engaged in R&D, industry collaborations and active student participation. At Sona Group of institutions, we found a deep commitment both to research and entrepreneurship.”

The MOU was signed by Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala on behalf of IITM Incubation Cell and Chocko Valliappa, Vice Chairman, Sona Group of Institutions in presence Dr SRR Senthilkumar, Principal Dr. Nirmalesh K. Sampath Kumar, Director, Innovation and R&D at the Sona group and IITMIC’s CEO Dr. Tamaswati Ghosh, Head Academic Liaison Jaya Umadikar, Outreach Lead Mr Pradeep Muralidhar and Strategy Officer Ms Seena Shivanath.

Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala, a widely celebrated startup guru said that he was pleased to see Sona group of Institutions among the first set of incubators that IITMIC is partnering with. IITMIC has incubated 241 deep-technology start-ups so far, valued at INR 11,000 crore, and have generated over 5200 jobs.