Shri Shankaracharya Institute of Professional Management and Technology

Choosing the right route

• Start with a faculty mentor from your own department. The policy expects every student who plans a startup to have one.
• Alumni, staff and research scholars who work with the institute are covered by the same policy. Check with the committee if you are outside the student and faculty groups.

How applications work

• Discuss your idea with your mentor first, then put it to the Innovation and Start-up Committee in the committee's format.
• For a startup award, send your supporting documents to the Principal's office through the committee.

How selection works

• Shortlisting follows a presentation to the committee.
• Shortlisted ideas move through workshops and expert guidance, then prototype development and basic testing.

What to bring

• A clear problem statement from a real sector, found through field visits or direct observation.
• A prototype, or a plan for building one under your mentor's supervision.

Shri Shankaracharya Institute of Professional Management and Technology, known as SSIPMT, is an engineering and management institute on Old Dhamtari Road in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. Its startup support runs through an Innovation and Start-up Committee formed under the National Innovation and Start-up Policy, which takes student ideas from a faculty mentor through to a prototype and, where it makes sense, a registered company. The institute was established in 2008.

How the startup pathway works

Students are encouraged to find real problems first. The institute's policy document says students visit places such as villages, hospitals and urban areas to see practical problems in those sectors. A student then develops an idea to solve one of them and discusses it with a mentor faculty member from the relevant department. Each student who plans to start a company is expected to have a faculty mentor.

Worthwhile ideas go to the Innovation and Start-up Committee in a set format. Shortlisted students give a presentation to the committee. Shortlisted ideas then go through workshops, webinars, lecture series and guidance from experts in the field. The student prepares a prototype under the mentor's supervision and tests the idea in real conditions before treating it as a business.

Company registration

The committee helps students with the paperwork for company registration, whether the firm is a proprietary firm, a partnership, a limited liability partnership or a private limited company. Where all partners of the firm are students or alumni of the institute, the institute reimburses the registration fee.

Who can apply

The policy covers all students and faculty of the institute. It also covers alumni, staff, management, and research scholars who collaborate with the institute or who are approved by the committee. Other people need the committee's approval.

Entrepreneurship awards

Every year on 26 January the institute gives Best Entrepreneurship Awards to student startups. The committee judges the startup on its potential for scale, the business it has done, its customer base, the markets it has reached and its ethical practices. The winner is decided by the committee, and its decision is final. Applicants submit supporting documents to the Principal's office through the committee.

The incubator on campus

The E-Cell page says that 36Inc, a business incubator and accelerator, welcomes any start-up that wants to develop an idea or grow an existing business. The institute's 2021 policy document instead speaks of the institute setting up incubator facilities of its own. The pages do not say which of the two runs the incubator on campus, or how a start-up joins it.

Facilities

The institute says it has Chhattisgarh's first AICTE IDEA Lab, a prototyping space where students experiment and build working models. The homepage says the institute is among 49 institutes across the country selected for the AICTE IDEA Lab in 2021.

Recognition and scale

The homepage says the institute holds a 4-star rating from the Institution's Innovation Council of the Ministry of Education. The 2021 policy document gives a 3-star rating for the same council. The pages therefore give different ratings, and this page does not pick one.

The homepage gives a patent count of 64. The 2021 policy document gives 5 patents and 2 copyrights. The two figures disagree and no count is given here.

Location

The campus is at Old Dhamtari Road, P.O. Sejbahar, Mujgahan, Raipur, Chhattisgarh.