BIG rolled out
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, March 30 2023:
Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) of the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India rolled out the special call on Biotechnology Ignition Grant (BIG) exclusively for the North-Eastern region of India.
This is being implemented by BIRAC regional Centre-BRTC established at KiIT technology Business incubator, KilT University, Bhubaneswar.
This special call has attracted 185 applications from NE regions and finally 75 innovative start ups of NE are pitching to the Jury panel (consisting of experts across India from academia, research organizations, industries and investors), said a statement.
The Biotechnology Ignition Grant's Technical Evaluation Panel meeting was held at Manipur Technology Innovation-Hub (MTI-Hub), which is established under the aegis of Department of Information Technology (DIT), Govt of Manipur and BIRAC BIG NER program is being implemented by KIlT-TBI.
MTI-Hub is engaged in promoting innovation and startup culture in Manipur.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Manish Diwan, Head of SPED, BIRAC congratulated the BIRAC-BRTC Centre at KilT-TBI and MT-Hub in creating the enabling ecosystem and providing the platform to the budding entrepreneurs of the region.
He also announced that from the current BIGNER call, 25 startups will be supported by providing upto 50 lakh each grant funding and mentioned that BIRAC and DBT, Gol is very keen to further extend all possible support to build the vibrancy in Biotech and life science-based startup ecosystem in the North Eastern region.
Dr Mrutyunjay Suar, CEO of KiIT-TBI and the Chairman of Bhubaneswar City Knowledge Innovation Cluster Foundation (BCKIC), an initiative of the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Govt of India expressed his sincere gratitude to the Govt of Manipur for setting up MTI-Hub and the leadership of BIRAC for rolling out the specific BIG-NER call to support the startup ecosystem in the region.