Ekta Incubation Centre

Before you apply

• Confirm first whether an intake is open. The pages we could read show none after March 2018.
• Check that you are eligible. Applicants must be students, research scholars or faculty of MAKAUT or an affiliated college.

How applications work

• The 2018 call asked for a written idea, in the format the notice enclosed, sent by email.
• No current application route is published. Ask the university for the current process before you send anything.

How selection works

• A selection committee decides which ideas become incubatees.

What reviewers look for

• Technical feasibility.
• Economic viability.
• Biotech, information technology or other fields, as the notice names them.

EKTA Incubation Centre is a technology business incubator on the Haringhata campus of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology, West Bengal (MAKAUT). The university's own pages say it was formerly the West Bengal University of Technology. The centre gives selected ideas space and mentoring, and its stated audience is students, research scholars and faculty of MAKAUT and its affiliated colleges.

How programmes work

The centre's main offer is incubation for ideas that come from the campus. Applicants put forward a new idea, and a selection committee decides which ideas to take on as incubatees. Incubatees receive space at the centre and mentoring.

The pages we could read do not show an open intake. The last call on any of them was a pitching session on 9 March 2018, and it is closed. Treat the centre as one to confirm directly with the university before you plan around it.

University committee records also list planned activities: a technology transfer programme for MAKAUT students, a three-month IPR certification programme, pitching workshops and funding-opportunity sessions. Those were planned. We found no record that they ran.

The centre's own page says equity participation in incubatee companies is meant to help make the centre financially viable. The page gives no terms, so the stake the centre takes, if any, is not published.

Who can apply

Students, research scholars and faculty of MAKAUT and its affiliated colleges. Ideas must be technically feasible and economically viable. The stated fields are biotech and information technology, or other fields.

Facilities

The centre provides space for incubatees on the Haringhata campus. The pages do not publish floor area, seat numbers or equipment lists.

Scale

The centre's page, last updated in 2017, names nine incubatees. They work in areas that include education software, medical technology and tele-radiology, embedded electronics, data security, power-sector technology and mobile apps. That is a 2017 snapshot. No current count of startups is published, and we have not counted any later activity.

Who runs it

The centre is part of MAKAUT. A 2018 notice says the university founded it, and university committee records describe it as an integral division of the university.

Locations

The centre is on the Haringhata campus, NH-12 (Old NH-34), Simhat, Haringhata, Nadia 741249, West Bengal. It has no separate street address. The university places the campus in Nadia district, but a government listing gives the city as Kolkata.

History and status

The centre's page says it became operational on 1 December 2005. A government listing gives 2007 as the year of establishment, and the sources do not settle which is right. The same page, last updated in 2017, describes the centre as operational. A university committee record from 2018 to 2019 says its management is not in good shape. We found no activity on the centre's pages after 2019.