G. H. RAISONI COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT, WAGHOLI,PUNE

Who this is for

Eureka is an on-campus facility built for GHRCEM's own students and recent alumni rather than an open incubator that any outside founder can apply to. If you are not a GHRCEM student or graduate, there is no separate public application route described on the college's materials — reach out to the college directly to check current eligibility.

How the incubation centre works

Eureka takes founders through three stages rather than a single application form:

• Idea formation and validation: bring a raw idea to workshops and mentorship sessions, where it gets tested for feasibility and scalability.
• Prototyping: get technical support and lab access (including the AICTE Idea Lab) to build a working version of the idea.
• Startup formation: get help turning the prototype into a company, including registration, legal compliance and a business model.

What to have ready

• A clear problem statement or idea you can explain and defend in a workshop setting.
• Willingness to work through prototyping before pitching for a company-formation track — the process is sequential, not a one-time pitch.
• If you already have a working prototype or an early company, ask specifically about routes into external government funding the centre helps connect founders to, such as the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme, NIDHI-EIR/PRAYAS, or MSME and state (MSINS) seed funds — these are separate schemes the centre helps you access, not funds it disburses itself.

Getting in touch

The college's general contact point is ghrcem.pune@raisoni.net. Ask specifically for the Innovation and Incubation Centre (Eureka) or the Institution's Innovation Council, since the general email covers the whole college.

G. H. Raisoni College of Engineering and Management (GHRCEM), Wagholi, Pune is an autonomous engineering college affiliated to Savitribai Phule Pune University. Founded in 2006, it runs undergraduate and postgraduate engineering, MBA and MCA programs alongside an in-house student incubation facility called the Eureka Innovation and Incubation Centre.

How the incubation centre works

Eureka was set up in 2016 under the college's Director, Dr. R. D. Kharadkar, and was inaugurated by Dr. Nitin Karmalkar, then Vice-Chancellor of Savitribai Phule Pune University. It takes students through three stages: idea formation and validation, where raw ideas are tested for feasibility through workshops and mentorship; prototyping, where students get technical support to build a working version of their idea; and startup formation, where Eureka helps turn a prototype into a functioning company, covering company formation, business models and go-to-market planning.

Alongside Eureka, the college set up an Institution's Innovation Council (IIC) in the 2018-19 academic year, also chaired by Dr. Kharadkar, to run innovation, entrepreneurship and IPR activity across the campus on a structured calendar.

What students get

Eureka gives founders desk and cabin space at two dedicated venues on campus, E-435 and the air-conditioned A-305, free of cost. Each comes with seating, whiteboards, storage, meeting and conference rooms, high-speed internet and computers, and CCTV-monitored security, so student teams don't have to rent office space while they build.

Beyond the space itself, Eureka helps with the paperwork and connections a first-time founder usually struggles with: guidance on registering a company and staying compliant, help filing patents and copyrights, and introductions to government funding schemes a startup can apply to, including NIDHI-EIR, NIDHI-PRAYAS, the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme, MSINS Seed Funds, MSME Seed Funds, and initiatives under STPI, Atmanirbhar Bharat and Digital India. It also runs training on design thinking, writing a business proposal, testing a minimum viable product, and validating a product with real customers.

Facilities

On top of the Eureka venues, the college has an AICTE Idea Lab built with laser cutting, CNC milling, PCB design and etching, CNC drilling and digital storage oscilloscopes, giving student teams basic prototyping and electronics equipment without leaving campus.

Track record

Students supported through Eureka and the wider IIC ecosystem have won recognition outside the college. One Eureka-incubated startup, Cyber Chakra Technologies, founded by students Shubham Pandey and Abhishek Waghmare, received incubation support from C3iHub at IIT Kanpur and a place in C3iHub's cohort. A student team also won the Ministry of Home Affairs' KAVACH 2023 national hackathon under the problem statement "Ramp Dump Collection Tool." Across the 2023-24 academic year, the college's students together won grant support from bodies including the Ministry of Home Affairs, C3iHub IIT Kanpur, IIM Ahmedabad and IIT Kharagpur.

The college's own reporting describes plans to add a dedicated MSME incubation centre as a next step, which suggests Eureka today is still primarily a general student innovation and pre-incubation facility rather than a specialised MSME-focused one.

Who this is for

Eureka is built around GHRCEM's own student and alumni community rather than an open call for outside founders — the college's materials describe it as support for "students and budding entrepreneurs" on campus, with no separate public application process for external startups. A prospective student who wants to build a company alongside their degree, or a recent graduate still connected to the campus, is the clearest fit.

Who runs it

Eureka and the IIC are led by Dr. R. D. Kharadkar (Director, GHRCEM, and IIC President), with Dr. K. C. Vora, a former Deputy Director at ARAI Pune, as IIC Vice-President, Mrs. Sarika Khope as Dean of Innovation and Incubation and IIC Convener, and Mrs. Swapnil Mahajan as Head of Innovation and Incubation.

Location

The college and its incubation centre are on the GHRCEM campus in Wagholi, on the eastern outskirts of Pune, Maharashtra.