Mepco Schlenk Engineering College, Sivakasi

Choosing the route

• If you are a student, researcher, faculty member or alumnus of the college, this is the most direct route in.
• If you are an outside founder, write to mic@mepcoeng.ac.in first and ask whether the centre is taking teams from outside the college.

Before you apply

• Name a mentor and describe their role on the form.
• Describe the product or technology in 250 words, and say whether you need space on campus.
• Give the planned incubation period in months.

Things to ask

• Whether intake is open now, and the start date.
• Whether the centre takes equity or charges a fee. Neither is stated on the pages we read.

The Mepco Incubation Centre (MIC) Sivakasi is the incubation centre of Mepco Schlenk Engineering College (Autonomous), Sivakasi, in Virudhunagar district, Tamil Nadu. It is a society registered under the Registration of Societies Act, and it is based on the college campus.

The centre exists to turn ideas into start-ups. Its stated objectives are to promote innovation-driven entrepreneurship through incubation of new innovative ideas, and to build an entrepreneurial culture among engineering students, research scholars, faculty and alumni.

What the centre offers

The centre lists air-conditioned working space for 30 start-ups, research facilities and support, mentoring and training by experts, seed funding, networking and high-bandwidth WiFi. Its short-term goals are to ideate and design new solutions, to support start-ups and innovators, and to build partnerships with local industry, institutions and investors.

Who can apply

The centre's own objectives name the college's students, research scholars, faculty, individuals working with faculty, and alumni first. The same objectives also mention other start-up enthusiasts, and a separate National Innovation and Start-up Policy page describes incubation for faculty-driven start-ups and for student, alumni and public start-ups. The college pages do not agree on how open the centre is, so check with the centre before applying if you are not part of the college.

How to apply

Applications are made on the centre's incubation support request form. The form asks for the names and affiliation of the incubatee and mentor, the product or technology to be incubated (in 250 words), whether space is needed on campus, the planned incubation period in months, and whether the team plans to start a company after incubation. The centre's contact address is mic@mepcoeng.ac.in.

Companies and wider activity

The centre's pages list external companies whose start-up ideas it has incubated, including companies from Coimbatore, Sivakasi and the United States. Its parent college also runs an Entrepreneurship Development Council for students, which holds awareness camps, ideation workshops and guest lectures.

Recognition

The college was selected as one of 24 institutions across India to set up an Atal Community Innovation Centre, under the Atal Innovation Mission of NITI Aayog. The college's ACIC-Mepco Innovation Foundation is registered as a section 8 company.