DSSE | About
DSSE trains aspiring entrepreneurs through courses and pre-incubation programs at IIT Bombay. Since inception, entrepreneurship courses offered by institute and adjunct faculty have benefited more than 3000 students. About 750 students have been mentored by the alumni, 200 venture teams formed and over 60 startups initiated by DSSE students.
Origin
In 2010, IITB envisioned a dedicated centre to offer courses on Innovation and Entrepreneurship with the relevant content, context and contacts to aspiring students. This vision took shape in 2014 when an alumnus of IITB, Mr. Bharat Desai (B.Tech, Electrical Engineering, 1975) and his wife Ms. Neerja Sethi donated one million dollars to start the Centre. The Desai Sethi Centre for Entrepreneurship was approved on 31 January 2014 by the Board of Governors of IIT Bombay, chaired by Padma Vibhushan Dr. Anil Kakodkar. In December 2019, the Board of Governors of IIT Bombay approved the conversion of the Centre into the Desai Sethi School of Entrepreneurship.
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Entrepreneurship has a transformative power. But this is not for everybody. The journey is tough – the path is covered with stones and thorns, not roses. Entrepreneurs need to have passion, self-belief, discipline and perseverance. We need to attract and train the best talent to embark on entrepreneurship.
- Bharat Desai (Desai Sethi Family Foundation)
Bharat Desai & Neerja Sethi are well-known as the founders of Systems International (Syntel) in Troy, Michigan in 1980, a company that provided IT consulting and outsourcing using a global delivery model and later merged with Atos, a French IT services provider.
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Over the last decades, IITians have established a global reputation as technology experts and business leaders. Today, with the national mindset evolving in favour of innovation and entrepreneurship, IIT Bombay is even more committed to nurture thought leaders and change makers of tomorrow, to address challenges in all fronts – society, economy, technology and environment. In this regard, the DS School of Entrepreneurship plays a pivotal role by engaging with the students, researchers, faculty, alumni and other stakeholders – government, incubators, investors and industry. The relevant courses and mentoring programs have received very good response from the internal community as well as external partners. The School is also a role model for other institutes. In the next decade, we expect further expansion of such activities and network as well as national development and social impact.”
- Prof. Subhasis Chaudhuri, Director, IIT Bombay
Milestones
These milestones for DSSE have been achieved under the leadership of founder Professor-in-Charge Anand Kusre (2014 to 2019), Professor-in-Charge Bhallamudi Ravi (2019 to 2022) and the current Head -DSSE, Prof Anuradha Narasimhan.
Role in the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem
DSSE is an integral part of IIT Bombay’s entrepreneurship ecosystem with symbiotic relationships with upstream student bodies and research labs / centres of excellence as well as with downstream grant-giving organizations, incubators and investors. The key student bodies are E-Cell and ITC (Institute Technical Council). E-cell helps raise awareness and aspiration about entrepreneurship through pioneering events like the annual E-Summit and business plan competitions like Eureka! Under the auspices of the Institute Technical Council are various tech teams and clubs like the Aeromodelling Club, Racing Car team, Team Shunya for Zero Energy etc. DSSE also works with IITB’s renowned business incubator SINE which provides ‘Start to Scale’ support for technology-based entrepreneurship. DSSE’s objective in the IIT Bombay entrepreneurship ecosystem is to ensure a robust funnel of ventures through its courses and pre-incubation programs.
Programs
DSSE fundamentally believes that Entrepreneurship combines both aspects of the arts and the sciences, it is a craft that can be taught. Towards this end, it offers several theory and lab courses relevant to innovation and entrepreneurship. These are open to undergraduate as well as post-graduate (Masters and PHD) students of IIT Bombay. Students can take these courses as electives or pursue a Minor in Entrepreneurship. From 2022, Introduction to Innovation and Entrepreneurship is a core course for undergraduates and offered in the first year of the B Tech / Dual Degree program. The interactive and experiential pedagogy of these courses is based on concept-based class discussions, field assignments and team projects, guest entrepreneurs and case studies.
Student teams are required to do projects as part of the courses and many of these teams continue their entrepreneurial journey beyond the curricular requirement. They enrol into DSSE’s pre-incubation programs and receive grants and access to facilities for working on their prototypes and well as mentoring for developing their business model.
Facilities
Students can bring their ideas alive by fabricating proof-of-concept and prototypes in the POC lab of DSSE. They can also access other labs of the Institute, such as Tinkering Lab and Makerspace Labs.
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POC LAB
This is located in the ground floor of IDC School of Design and offers DSSE lab courses like POC-Basic and POC-Advanced . It houses hand tools, power tools, digital and screen printing facilities, CNC machines, laser cutter, 3-D printers , metal and wood working machines capable of prototyping using various materials. Students use these facilities for fabricating proof-of-concepts of novel products. Students participating in the pre-incubation programs or mentored by members of the DSSE team can access the facilities based on their requirement and availability of the facilities. -
TINKERERS’ LABThis is located at the intersection of two infinite corridors, near the corner of Mechanical Engineering department. It houses basic equipment including 3D printers, CNC machines, power tools and electronics. This lab is managed by the students and is open to all students of the Institute round the clock.
Partners
DSSE has symbiotic relationships with E-Cell and ITC (Institute Tech Council), both managed by the students, and SINE the technology business incubator of the Institute. The School also partners with several other institutes and organizations for exchange visits and collaborative training programs.
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E-CELLThe E-Cell was formed in 1998 to promote the culture of entrepreneurship. It is managed and run by the students, with Head of DSSE as the faculty guide. The Cell organizes the annual E-Summit, which brings together more than 30000 students, entrepreneurs, business leaders, investors, startup founders and visitors. Other activities of E-Cell include Eureka (international business plan competition), NEC (National Entrepreneurship Challenge for colleges to build their own E-Cells), TTMM (The Ten Minute Million: pitching to investors), talks by business leaders and many competitions.
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ITC Institute Technical CouncilITC is managed by the students and drives technology projects including Mars Rover, Racing Car Team, Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, Pratham Satellite and Shunya (zero-energy housing). ITC also has several technical clubs like the Aeromodelling Club, the Electronics & Robotics Club, the Energy Club etc
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Centres of ExcellenceIIT Bombay is an ‘Institution of Eminence’ which is at the forefront of scientific discovery and emerging technologies – to accelerate this, the Institute has opened several Centres of Excellence that will allow IIT Bombay to take the lead in emerging technologies in the country and aid in nation-building. Some of the Centres of Excellence include Healthcare Informatics, Biosciences, Green Energy, Climate Change, Electric Mobility, Drone Technologies, applications of Artificial Intelligence and Data Sciences, and Digital Trust – all of which will have a profound impact.
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BETICBETIC has been partnering with DSSE both with academic and pre-incubation activities. Since its inception in 2014 at IIT Bombay, Biomedical Engineering and Technology Innovation Centre (BETIC) has been building the necessary eco-system by connecting stakeholders – government, academia, medical community, industry, investors and facilitators. The BETIC team has met several hundred doctors, identified 450 unmet needs, created 240 novel concepts, and filed 55 patents. Further, they developed 25 devices, incubated 16 startups, licensed 14 products to or developed for local industry partners.
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SINESociety for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), is an umbrella organisation at IIT Bombay for fostering entrepreneurship and nurturing tech start-ups. It administers a business incubator which provides ‘Start to scale’ support for technology-based entrepreneurship and facilitates the conversion of research activity into entrepreneurial ventures. SINE has been selected as “Centre of Excellence” by Department of Science and Technology (DST), GOI with funding support to scale up its activities.
Contact
The DSSE team currently operates from the offices located in Monash Building near the Victor Menezes Convention Centre in IIT Bombay campus. Please visit us or contact through mail or phone call.
REACH US
Desai Sethi School of Entrepreneurship
Monash Building, IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai-400076, India.
E-Mail: office.dsse@iitb.ac.in
Phone: +91 22 2576 5381 / 5382