All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)

The AICTE Productization Fellowship supports student teams taking a proof-of-concept or prototype toward a product or service. It is open to students at AICTE-approved institutions and runs for one year, extendable by one more year.

What you get

• A monthly fellowship for up to one year, to fund proof-of-concept or prototype development.
• A contingency grant for miscellaneous product-development costs.
• An extension of one more year, which covers stage two of the proposal.

Who can apply

• Student teams from AICTE-approved institutions and university departments.
• Students who passed out within the last two years.
• Projects at proof-of-concept stage at minimum. Idea-stage projects are not entertained.

How selection works: An expert committee constituted by AICTE evaluates the proposal online before admitting the team to the fellowship or granting any financial benefit. Applications are accepted throughout the year and evaluated twice a year.

How to apply: Applications go through AICTE's portal. The scheme page says registration on the portal started on 14 May 2025.

Intellectual property: Commercial exploitation and patent rights are shared jointly with the institute and the students.

Smart India Hackathon is a nationwide hackathon that gives students a platform to solve pressing problems and build a product-innovation mindset. Teams work on problem statements. According to AICTE, the last edition drew over five million students from engineering colleges, competing for the top prize at more than 35 locations. The winners of the 2025 Grand Finale are published on the SIH site. The published pages do not set out prize or funding terms.

Who can apply

• SIH Junior: students in Classes 6 to 12.
• SIH Senior: students of higher education institutions.

How to apply: Teams are nominated and their ideas submitted through the SIH portal. The site also invites private and public sector industries and NGOs to join separately.

The AICTE Student Start-up Policy is a framework, launched in November 2016, to guide and promote student-driven innovation and start-ups in AICTE-approved institutions. It was designed in line with the Start-up India action plan of the Government of India, and the policy page covers more than 10,000 AICTE-approved institutions.

The policy aims to strengthen support for student start-ups in the pre-incubation phase, and to build a pipeline into incubation centres, acceleration units and investors. The page sets out these aims. It does not set out fee, equity or money terms, or the individual benefits a student would receive.

Who can apply: Students and institutions within AICTE-approved institutions.

How to apply: The policy page names a separate start-up website as its route in. Confirm it directly before relying on it.

AICTE-IDEA Labs are hands-on innovation labs set up inside technical institutions for STEM learning, learning by doing and product visualisation. The labs are mandated to run around the clock and to be available to the colleges, schools and industries around them.

The IDEA Lab call published on AICTE's site is for FY 2022-23, and it is closed. The advert said more than 90 institutions had been identified to set up labs across 22 states and union territories.

AICTE's initiatives page describes AICTE as establishing the labs. The 2022-23 call asks institutions to set up labs using their own funds, from management, industry, the affiliating university, government agencies or alumni. The two accounts do not agree, so check with AICTE before assuming who pays.

Who can apply: Under the 2022-23 call, technical institutions in existence for ten years, running at least one course with live NBA accreditation as of January 2022, or with live NAAC accreditation.

How to apply: Institutions submit online proposals. Check AICTE's site for any call after 2022-23.

The AICTE-Research Promotion Scheme funds research projects in identified thrust areas of technical education. It aims to create a research environment in institutions by promoting research in engineering sciences and in established and newer technologies, and to produce master's and doctoral candidates who strengthen faculty and research.

The scheme is aimed at institutions and their faculty and research scholars rather than at startups. The scheme page does not set out who can apply or how to apply beyond that framing.