ISRO Tech Incubation Centre, Agartala Launched at 1st Edition of SPACETRONICS Organized by IESA

India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA), the premier trade body representing the Indian electronic system design and manufacturing space, hosted the 1st edition of SPACETRONICS 2018 to facilitate discussion on Space technology and policies.

ISRO Technology Incubation Centre, Agartala was launched remotely by Biplab Kumar Deb, Chief Minister, Tripura in presence of  Dr. K V Sivan, Chairman, ISRO ; Dr. A S Kiran Kumar, Former Chairman, ISRO ; Dr. P V Venkitakrishnan, Director, CBPO, ISRO ; Dr. H K Sharma, Director, NIT, Agartala ; Anil Kumar Muniswamy, Chairman IESA and MD, SLN Technologies and other dignitaries  at the Inaugural session of SPACETRONICS 2018.

The inaugural session was graced by the presence of Biplab Kumar Deb, Chief Minister, Tripura as the Chief Guest. Sharing the stage was Dr. K Sivan, Chairman, ISRO; Dr. A S Kiran Kumar, Former Chairman, ISRO; Dr. P V Venkitakrishnan, Director, CBPO, ISRO; Dr. H K Sharma, Director, NIT, Agartala; Anil Kumar Muniswamy, Chairman IESA and MD, SLN Technologies, who addressed the audience on the necessity to focus on the unbridged talent pool, need for accelerating investment promotions, international alliances, start-up ecosystem and policy implementation to strengthen innovation and facilitate entrepreneurship in the Space Technology domain of the country.  

SPACETRONICS 2018 is a leadership conclave for the Space Technology ecosystem attracting a powerful line-up of industry experts, thought leaders, policy makers, government officials, business and technology experts, entrepreneurs who shared their views and vision on the Space technology and policy as well as the trends, challenges, and opportunities shaping the Indian industry.

Anil Kumar Muniswamy, Chairman, IESA addressing the Summit said “With huge market opportunity related to the Space technology segment, the Indian ESDM industry is projected to see space technology related investment over the next 5 years. We believe that now is the time to build the future ecosystem to nurture innovation and entrepreneurship in the Space technology segment. SPACETRONICS is dedicated towards building the Space technology industry success by highlighting opportunity areas and addressing the challenges being faced. IESA is assisting ISRO in establishing Technologies Incubation Centres across the country and the first such Centre is starting at NIT Agartala in Tripura state. The objective of Technology incubation centres is to develop cutting edge technologies needed by the space sector and creation of IPs. This is going to be a great push towards Make in India”

Further, during the launch of ISRO Space Technology Incubation Centre, Dr. K Sivan, Chairman, ISRO said, “Given the availability of abundant talent in India, I am very excited about the tremendous opportunity we have, to accelerate the space related innovation and start-ups through this ISRO Space Technology Incubation Centre at National Institute of Technology (NIT), Agartala. ISRO is looking to incubate start-ups that would build applications; offer services and products which it can use internally and help them scale up so that these firms can exploit opportunities globally.  We will work with multiple models for the incubators such as starting an incubator on own or engaging existing technology incubators to groom these start-ups under ISRO supervision. This facility with active support from the State Government of Tripura and IESA, the Ecosystem Partner will be a big boost for the process in every sense” 

Biplab Kumar Deb, Chief Minister, Tripura said, “Tripura has been focusing to emerge as a prominent place in the Indian technology map nurturing innovation, entrepreneurship and invention. We have put in place policies and framework to ensure that the ecosystem is favourable to more partnerships, access to funds, ease of business, networking in the domestic and international market and more importantly, inculcating this new initiative - ISRO Space Technology Incubation Centre of the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Agartala. This is a kind of process to develop start-ups by ISRO and the government initiative of Transforming India. Along with the support of ISRO & IESA, we want to inculcate an ecosystem to propel the space and ESDM sector and encourage innovation not only in the state but in the rest of the country too”

The other key activities of the summit were ISRO workshop on “Avionics, Tracking & Telemetry, Satellite Components, Space Applications, Process Automation, Surveillance Systems, Vendor Registration process and much more” and keynote addresses by Yousef Khalilollahi, VP Core Vertical Markets, Xilinx Inc and by Rahul K Mathur, Director, TE Connectivity. A pledge drive by companies was also executed with ESSCI for the Skill India Campaign.