City B-school among four institutions to bag prestigious Atal Innovation Mission grant

The facility, of over 10,000 sq feet was inaugurated in the presence of Bala V Balachandar, Founder, Chairman of the board and Dean Emeritus, Great Lakes Institute of Management, among others. Observed TV Somanathan, Principal Secretary, Planning and Development, TN, “Angel, incubator and unicorn are no longer words confined to the dictionary. Today they are all terms used in the start-up industry.”

“India has become a hub of start-ups and the sector is thriving. India ranks third in most number of business incubators after China and the US. Amongst a large number of start-ups in the country, it is important that we focus and nurture ideas that will have a positive social impact.”

He was speaking at the launch of Atal – Great Lakes – Balachandran – Incubation Centre (AGBI) centre at the Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai. This was in association with Atal Innovation Mission.

Balachandar said “We strive to make an impact in the competitive world by doing things differently. The launch of this incubation center is a dream come true for me. Great Lakes would be one of the first B- Schools and perhaps the first in the world from where entrepreneurs will graduate. We will bring all our forces together and achieve more.”

Dr Ramanan Ramanathan, Mission Director of Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Ayog, said, “India is a country of 1.3 bn people, out which 115 mn youngsters will be joining workplaces in the next 5-10 years. The cost of innovation is coming down, thus creating virtually zero cost for fostering ideas. With Atal Innovation Mission and Great Lakes partnership, we hope to give wings to ideas to make a difference in people’s lives.”

Another development is the collaboration between the B-school and Virtusa named, “The AGBI-Virtusa Centre of Excellence (CoE) in AI-ML and IoT”.

Virtusa signed an agreement MOU to fund a part of the total cost of the lab over a 3-year period, beginning November 2019, amounts to be mutually agreed on the merits.

“Innovation has been thriving. Virtusa, Great Lakes Institute of Management and the Great Lakes incubator are aligned. It is proposed that the collaboration between the organisations culminate in the setting up of a design lab comprising an AIM-LAB – a lab devoted exclusively to leveraging technologies such as AI, IoT, ML, algorithmic analytics and blockchain, and a prototyping lab,” said Aravind Purushothaman, SVP & Head, Cloud & Head, Virtusa.