The Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology, Ashutosh Sharma launched a program in catalyzing innovation, entrepreneurship, and incubation.  It was released as a report of the journey of the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB).

“The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has played a significant role in fostering and nurturing the fledgling startup ecosystem by steering it through its strong network of Incubators through the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB). The last five years have been significant in bringing this to fruition, as is evident from the report,” Professor Sharma, Secretary DST, said while launching the report. 

Also, Dr. Anita Gupta, who is the Head of NSTEDB said, “The concerted efforts of NSTEDB, DST during the last 5 years for supporting innovation-driven entrepreneurship and fuelling incubation activity in institutions of higher learning has gained momentum and traction with speed and scale.” 

Playing a significant role in energizing the incubator led innovation value chain, the National Initiative of Startup India and Standup India has  aligned its activities; programs such as National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovation (NIDHI-) initiated by NSTEDB. 

In the span of the last 5 years, it played a crucial role in strengthening the academic-led innovation and startup ecosystem in the country.  Range of measures that includes a network of technology business incubators, enabling transition from being innovators to startups,  supporting ideas to prototypes, provision of timely seed funding to the incubated startups,  partnerships, and support to scale up the startups through focused mentorship. 

Throughout the COVID 19 pandemic, the collective strength and power of the NIDHI program, the DST Incubator network and its startups was tested successfully.