Mangalore Institute of Technology & Engineering

Choosing a route

• Students with a working idea: the NAIN Ideathon is the funded route the pages describe. Its 2026 round closed on 11 April 2026, so check the NAIN page for the next call.
• Anyone with an idea who wants incubation space and mentoring: write to mite.first@mite.ac.in. The pages set no age or enrolment rule for this.
• Teams for NAIN need three to five members. Alumni and local entrepreneurs can join but cannot be the project leader.

How NAIN applications work

• The institute first calls for submissions on its notice boards and circulars, then sends selected projects to the host-institute level.
• Projects must be completed within six months, with milestones at the end of the 3rd month (50%) and the 6th month (100%).
• Project funds may buy materials for a prototype. They cannot pay for computers, phones, cameras or similar hardware.

What the programme favours

• Local problems, solved with frugal innovation and a working prototype.
• Enquiries on NAIN go to nain@mite.ac.in.

The Mangalore Institute of Technology & Engineering (MITE) runs an incubation centre on its campus at Moodabidre, Dakshina Kannada, Karnataka. MITE is a unit of Rajalaxmi Education Trust and an autonomous institute affiliated to VTU, Belagavi and approved by AICTE, New Delhi.

What the centre offers

The centre has air-conditioned office spaces, meeting rooms and high-speed internet on campus, in a space of 5895 sq ft. Incubatees also get access to the institute's laboratories. Mentors come from industry and from successful local entrepreneurs, and the centre gives technical, management and legal support to young entrepreneurs who are just starting out.

Programmes

The centre runs three funding and support routes. The first is the NAIN Ideathon, a yearly student idea competition under the New Age Innovation Network scheme of the Government of Karnataka. Selected student projects receive seed funding for prototype work and must be completed within six months. The second is the centre's incubation support for early-stage ventures, covering mentoring, space and technical, management and legal help. The third is seed funding for technology innovations by young entrepreneurs, given under the MSME incubator scheme of the Government of India.

Who can apply

The NAIN Ideathon is open to students. The project leader must be a full-time student of the college, and alumni and local entrepreneurs can join a team but cannot lead it. Teams have three to five members. The centre's pages name students, faculty, alumni and aspiring innovators as the people its activities serve, but they set no separate enrolment rule for the incubation support itself.

Activities

The centre runs ideathons, hackathons, bootcamps, design thinking sessions, investor connects, demo days and mentoring clinics through the year. It also holds intellectual property and patent filing workshops, entrepreneurship awareness programmes and funding and grant guidance sessions.

Figures

The pages give different annual counts. Under NAIN, the centre says 10 student business ideas are supported every year. Its ecosystem section says MITE supports 30+ innovative ideas every year. The centre also states that 20 student ideas from two earlier phases were incubated and received seed funding for prototype development. These figures are self-reported, and the pages do not say which count is current.

Recognition

MITE was selected as a NAIN host institute in August 2024. The centre also reports a grant under the MSME incubator scheme, but the page gives no date for it.