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IOC launches start-up scheme with Rs 30 crore corpus
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the country’s largest fuel retailer, today announced it has launched a start-up scheme with a corpus of Rs 30 crore to promote promising start-ups and “nurture an eco-system conducive for innovations” in the domestic hydrocarbons sector.
Driven by IOC’s Research & Development Centre at Faridabad, the scheme will support projects which involve innovative technology and business process re-engineering ideas with significant business potential, social relevance and focus on environment-protection.
“The start-up scheme will be administered through a dedicated online portal and will facilitate the community of innovators, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. It will help them pursue their promising ideas right up to validated proof of concept (PoC) stage by funding the incubation ecosystem and through intellectual mentoring,” the company said in a statement.
IndianOil will also help in commercialisation of select validated PoCs through equity participation. Citizens of Indian origin willing to work in India besides individuals affiliated to academic institutions having incubation centres approved by the central government, or intrapreneurs from IndianOil can apply under the scheme.
To begin with, IndianOil will float the first round of open Innovation Challenge by way of an Expression of Interest (EoI) to select 9 proposals in the domain of Technology Process Re-engineering (TPRE) and 6 proposals in the domain of Business Process Re-engineering (BPRE). The proposals received will be subjected to screening and the short-listed one will be incubated with the required physical and intellectual support till they reach PoC stage.
The project owners will be supported with grants of up to Rs 2 crore per project during this period. The areas identified by the start-up scheme under Technical Process Re-engineering (TPRE) include low-cost efficient vapour recovery system at fuel stations, low-cost production of Hydrogen, low-cost process for desalination of sea water, innovative schemes for ensuring zero effluents from oil refineries, molecular modelling and design of the inter-phase molecule for dispersion of nano-material in HC media.
The scheme will also cover environment-friendly disposal of insulation material like ceramic blankets and glass wool, LPG cylinder safety aspects and waste-to-energy projects.
The company said it is hopeful the start-up scheme will promote collaborative research, develop an innovative ecosystem, nurture entrepreneurship, boost start-ups with rural orientation and open up avenues for young employees of IOC to launch start-up projects. IOC will soon launch a dedicated online portal for the scheme. Matt Read Womens Jersey
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