IIT Madras GDC focuses on democratising innovation and entrepreneurship

Indian Institute of Technology Madras’ (IIT Madras) Gopalakrishnan-Deshpande Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (GDC) organised its 6th Annual GDC Symposium, themed “Democratising Innovation & Entrepreneurship in India.”

Organized on 17th Jan 2026, it brought national focus on the role of the entrepreneur as the central driver of India’s deep-tech and innovation-led growth. More importantly, the symposium debated how to increase the focus of policymaking, mentorship, and funding on “building capable entrepreneurs” as a missing piece of the scaling innovation puzzle in India/

Held at a time when India is witnessing a rapid rise of startups from Tier II and Tier III cities, increased participation by women founders and wider access enabled by digital platforms, the symposium highlighted a critical gap in the ecosystem — the sustained development of an entrepreneurial mindset and skills.

Through this annual symposium, GDC reaffirmed its commitment to developing the capabilities of faculty and researchers at hundreds of STEM universities across India to build deep-tech startups from Translational research. The role of science, research, innovation, technology and startups is central to achieving the vision of Viksit Bharat@2047

Speakers emphasised that while technology, funding and infrastructure are essential, long-term entrepreneurial success depends on mentoring, nurturing and capability-building of individuals, particularly in deep-tech ventures with long gestation periods.

During his keynote address, Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan, Co-founder and former Vice Chairman, Cognizant Technology Solutions, said, “Scientists and researchers can be entrepreneurial in more ways than one. Besides launching startups to bring their innovations to market, scientists can also be equally impactful by solving difficult technological challenges within the framework of large corporations or government projects. Such successful outcomes are also entrepreneurial successes, which GDC and IITM should encourage.”

Dr. Shivkumar Kalyanaraman, CEO, Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), delivered the second keynote, joining over videoconferencing, and explained the programs and initiatives of ANRF for catalysing research and translation into impact. ANRF has operationalized a number of programs in this financial year including multiple ANRF MAHA mission mode programs in various sectors (Electric Mobility, 2D materials, AI for Science & Engineering, MedTech, Critical Raw Materials), ANRF PAIR & PM Professorship program for uplifting research in emerging institutions, ATRI translational programs, and Fundamental Research Programs (ANRF ARG, PM ECRG, NPDF, Ramanujan Fellowship, JC Bose Grants, National Science Chair, Convergence Centers at the intersection of Humanities Social Science with S&T). The RDI patient capital fund of ₹1L crore is also bring operationalized housed in ANRF and DST as the anchor ministry. He pointed out that “ANRF’s goal is to really focus on excellence and merit-based capacity development; we want to be impact-oriented in everything we do. We are upgrading all our measurements to really measure and govern for impact, rather than just distributing funds”.  

During his keynote, Mr Srinath Ravichandran, Co-founder & CEO of Agnikool Cosmos, a deep-tech startup from IIT Madras, said, “Given a chance, I would always start off with the tagline that 'We are an IIT Madras startup,' because I do not think we should ever fully emerge from that umbrella. It is those first five or six years that shape who the company is, and that culture actually comes from the university environment”.

The symposium explored whether India is investing sufficiently — and in the right areas — to train and prepare entrepreneurs aligned with the national vision of Viksit Bharat 2047. Discussions underscored that cultivating business acumen, resilience and decision-making is vital to translating cutting-edge research into market-ready solutions.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said, “Democratisation of Education and Entrepreneurship is happening in a big way at IIT Madras. The online BS Program has enabled nearly 50,000 students, many of them from financially weak families to access the best education. Further, IITM is enabling startups and entrepreneurs from all over India to learn from its labs, incubators, faculty, and programs at GDC. ”

Delivering a lecture on ‘Catalysing a Lab to Market Movement in India’, Prof. Krishnan Balasubramanian, GDC Professor In-charge and Chair Professor, IIT Madras, said, “GDC is playing an expert facilitation role with academic faculty and researchers in guiding their innovations to get to market and create impact. GDC’s role is primarily to change the mindset of faculty from pushing their innovation to the market to listening to the market and accordingly building their innovation.”

A panel on “How Policy in India is Enabling Democratisation of Innovation and Entrepreneurship” was chaired by Mr.Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chairman, Axilor Ventures, and featured experts including Mr Lakshmi Narayanan, Co-founder & Emeritus Vice Chairman, Cognizant Technologies; Dr.Shashank Shah, Director (Senior Specialist- Education), NITI Aayog, and Mr Adithya Jain, Co-founder & CEO, Tvasta Technologies. Dr. Shah spoke in reference to NITI Aayog’s ongoing study, with GDC, IIT Madras as the knowledge partner, noting that the study covered over 100 incubators across 18 States of India. The study will provide policy inputs to advance incubation ecosystem in Higher Education Institutions across the nation to achieve the vision of making India the global startup capital.

A second panel, “Creating Dynamic Deep-tech Startups – Hear it from the Founders,” featured entrepreneurs from emerging Indian deep-tech companies that benefited from GDC’s programs. This panel included Mr KV Anand, Chief Innovation Officer of GDC as Chairman; Dr Varun Khandelwal – Co-founder & CEO of Healayantra; Mr Sanidhya Chaturvedi- Co-founder & COO of Folium Sensing; and Mr Lokesh Kabdal, Co-founder & CEO of VyomIC.

A third panel in the form of a fireside chat on “Enabling Grassroots Innovation in Enabling Translational Research in India” brought together Gururaj Deshpande, Co-founder, Deshpande Foundation; Varun Aggarwal, Founder and Trustee, FAST India; and Dr Raghuttama Rao, CEO, GDC IIT Madras.

On the sidelines of the symposium, around 15 deep-tech startups from across India showcased their innovations, offering policymakers, investors and mentors direct insight into the aspirations and challenges of India’s next generation of founders.