Yesterday, Dr. A.S. Rao, of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) was in Pune, to meet with innovators of Pune and talk to them about DSIR’s Technopreneur Promotion Programme. This was immediately after NASSCOM’s innovation awards roadshow (liveblogged by Manas Garg (part 1, part 2)).

The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) is a part of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and has a mandate to carry out the activities relating to indigenous technology promotion, development, utilization and transfer. The primary endeavour of DSIR is to promote R&D by the industries, support a larger cross section of small and medium industrial units to develop state-of-the art globally competitive technologies of high commercial potential, catalyze faster commercialization of lab-scale R&D, enhance the share of technology intensive exports in overall exports, strengthen industrial consultancy & technology management capabilities and establish user friendly information network to facilitate scientific and industrial research in the country.

The Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP) TePP along with its network partners provide grants, technical guidance and mentoring to independent innovators to emerge as entrepreneurs by incubating their idea and enterprise in two phases. Till date 250 innovations have been supported. Proposals are now invited on for support in the year 2008-09.

PuneTechies Amit Paranjape (of PuneTech!) and Unmesh Mayekar (of SadakMap) who attended the event sent in the following notes of the meeting for the benefit of PuneTech readers.

Amit writes:

TEPP Program can provide grants upto Rs. 60 Lakhs to entrepreneurs. Note these are ‘grants’. For further details on the application process and other details, please checkout the following website:

http://www.dsir.gov.in/tpdup/tepp/tepp.htm

Also checkout Dr. Rao’s blog that contains a lot of other relevant information regarding the TEPP program.

http://tepp-innovators.blogspot.com/

The TEPP Program does not directly cover software companies (All companies that develop some ‘hardware’ are covered). An exception is made in case of software companies in the ‘Security’ area.

However, TEPP/allied programs can help software entrepreneurs in patents/copyright protection related expenses, upto Rs. 15 Lakhs.

Unmesh adds:

• Rs. 60 lakhs is given in 2 phases of 15 and 45 (the second phase funds becoming available if the first phase is successful)
• The process takes from 3 to 6 months. It takes time to prepare the application for the grant. The acceptance rate is low.
• It helps to have patents. The IP stays with the innovator.
• There is a students entrepreneur program that funds upto Rs. 75000 for projects.
• Other tidbits:
  • Patent reimbursement scheme from DIT
  • Check out the National Innovation Foundation
  • For software there are other groups that provide seed such as SINE, DST

Moral of the story: If you are an innovative entrepreneur, check out the TePP. And if you are attending some tech event in Pune, please take notes and send it to us, for the benefit of the larger community.