Sikkim’s Atal Incubation Centre Sikkim Manipal University Business Incubation Foundation (AIC-SMUTBI) is selected to implement an accelerator programme. Facebook's parent Meta will incubate 40 early-stage extended reality (XR) start-ups from India in the program.

The Sikkim AIC-SMU Technology Business Incubation Foundation is among the four Indian institutions selected to implement the accelerator programme.

Each start-up will get a grant of Rs. 20 lakh as part of a new accelerator called the XR Start-up Programme in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

In addition to the accelerator program, Meta will also conduct a grand challenge for individual innovators from different sectors like education, healthcare, gaming and entertainment, agri-tech, tourism, and climate. These innovators will be given support to make their XR products ready for the market.

To start with, 80 innovators will be shortlisted for a boot camp. Out of the 80, 16 will get the grant to develop a prototype.

The accelerators and organisers of the grand challenge will support the start-ups and innovators to build customer connections and find new partnerships and funding opportunities.

XR suits the new generation mentality by including immersive technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality that offer real-world experiences in a virtual world and virtual experiences over real-world objects and spaces using head-mounted displays or smartphones.

The accelerator programme was launched by an initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) called Meity Startup Hub and Meta today.

The Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, speaking on the occasion said that the programme is especially aimed at encouraging technology innovation in smaller cities and towns.

Encouraging the participants he asserted, “Young Indian start-ups, especially from tier 2/3 cities will play a significant role in emerging tech areas like Web 3.0, blockchain, AI and Metaverse, and will shape the future of technology and the internet for India and the world."

The other institutes implementing the programme are Hyderabad, Gujarat University Startup and Entrepreneurship Council (GUSEC), Ahmedabad, and Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT), IIT Delhi.

The above institutions will strategically enable the start-ups across the length and breadth of the country creating a pan-India strategy in the XR technology space.

AIC-SMUTBI located in Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology at Majhitar is the first Atal Incubation Centre in the Northeast of India. It is fully supported by the Atal Innovation Mission, the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog and the Government of India.

The centre, thus, supports by nurturing the early-stage entrepreneurs of northeast India in technology and innovation by providing infrastructure, consultancy and seed grants to promising young entrepreneurs to pursue their dreams of starting their ventures.

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