IIT Kanpur Research and Technology Park (brand name, Technopark@IITK) has achieved an important landmark completing five years of fostering academia-industry collaboration for developing cutting-edge innovation and knowledge-based technologies. Technopark@IITK has leveraged the core competencies and strengths of IIT Kanpur to emerge as a leading research and development hub across sectors.

“Technopark@iitk completes five years today and it is a significant milestone for us. In a short span of time, we have achieved considerable success in getting research focussed companies to Kanpur including some big names like Laurus Labs and forge meaningful engagements with the academic community to accelerate the pace of innovation and drive tangible socio-economic impact. I believe this platform can play a pivotal role in furthering the objectives of the state government and of the country in building a stronger self-reliant economy,” says Prof. S Ganesh, Director, IIT Kanpur.

Started in March 2019 as a non-profit Section 8 company, Technopark@iitk is a pioneering initiative by IIT Kanpur aimed at fostering Industry-IIT Kanpur R&D collaborations by inviting research driven industries to work closely with the academic fraternity and co-develop cutting-edge technologies in line with the national priorities.

Technopark@iitk is set to transition into its own state-of-the-art building, soon to be inaugurated. The facility, located within the IIT Kanpur campus, is spread over two and a half lakh square feet space (2.5 lakh sq. ft.) with modern amenities like recreation facilities, cafeteria, meeting and conference rooms and training rooms. With over 65,000 sq. ft. space already taken, this new facility boasts of the presence of several leading companies like Laurus Labs Ltd., Meril Diagnostics, TVM Signalling and Transportation Systems, Geo Climate Risk Solutions, Q-Line Biotech to name a few. Laurus Labs Ltd., a Hyderabad based leading pharma and biotechnology company, has licensed the technology from IIT Kanpur in gene therapy domain and is setting up its cGMP vector manufacturing facility within Technopark@iitk.   

“The purpose of Technopark@iitk is to promote interactions between industry and IIT Kanpur in a holistic manner and speed up the transition of products and technologies from lab scale to industry. The companies can leverage the entire massive research ecosystem of IIT Kanpur for their R&D goals and growth. This includes hard core R&D projects with faculty, internships with IITK students on real world industry challenges, access to IITK R&D infrastructure, joint patents and publications, licensing and commercializing patented technologies. We are also working on mission mode projects as outlined by the country needs”, says Prof. Amarendra Kumar Singh, Professor-in-charge, Technopark@iitk.

The new Technopark@iitk facility will soon be the centre of defence testing facilities under DTIS scheme of the Ministry of Defence in the areas of UAV and Communications.

For IIT Kanpur and Technopark@iitk, the Phase 1 building launch is an exciting chapter in times to come to bridge the industry-academia gap for nurturing technologies and innovation. It reinforces their commitment to the national objective of building a self-reliant and developed India, as envisioned by ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ and ‘Viksit Bharat’ initiatives.