Innovators Connect Tandem: A Unique Format For Co-Creation in Indo-German Teams

What are your reflections on Innovators Connect Tandem as a format for connecting researchers to explore innovations from lab to market, in an international context?

The Innovators Connect Tandem is a unique format for supporting early-stage innovators from academia or start-ups. The interesting part is that the participants are paired between India and Germany, encouraging the development of collaborative projects and taking innovative ideas forward through potential commercial ventures. Such programmes also open up many opportunities to convert ideas emerging from academia and research laboratories into market-ready products and services.

From your perspective, what did you think of the overall potential of the ideas presented on the pitch day and what distinguished the strongest teams?

There were several interesting ideas presented on the pitch day. Despite the short duration of the programme, the ideas were worked out in detail, and there is further scope to develop these ideas and mentor the teams to improve their Innovation and Technology Readiness Levels.

The top teams were those, where there was at least one team member, who was very passionate about entrepreneurship, either due to a strong technical background or prior experience in commercial aspects, or where there was a strongly committed team member who could pitch convincingly about the idea, the work done, and the path ahead. These were a few aspects that clearly stood out on the pitch day.

What are the key benefits of connecting start-up founders and researchers early in their entrepreneurial journeys with international research and start-up ecosystems?

An early-stage connection between start-up founders and researchers and international ecosystems is crucial for finding co-founders and strategic partners, leveraging the strengths of each ecosystem while building up the company, and gaining early inputs for need identification, customer discovery, and a Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy.

What common pitfalls do you observe that early-stage researchers and start-ups encounter when engaging in international collaboration or expansion?

The most common pitfalls remain as lack of information or networks to identify complementary needs and capabilities for matchmaking, a lack of fast-acting and simple mechanisms to formalise and fund collaborations in a timely, efficient, and flexible manner, and regulatory constraints when dealing with bioresources.

Venture Centre participated in DWIH New Delhi’s Incubator Connect Tandem programme in India and Germany in recent years. How would you describe the interest of Venture Centre in cooperation with DWIH New Delhi and Germany? Which areas or fields show potential for collaboration?

The level of interest in Indo-German cooperation is very high, particularly in sectors such as, medical devices and diagnostics, food, nutrition, agriculture technology, sustainability – especially clean energy, rehabilitation and assistive technology.

In scientific and engineering domains, areas showing major potential include biomedical engineering, chemistry, chemical engineering and process development, materials science, industrial biotechnology, IoT, data analytics and AI.

Foreseen goals for interaction could include fostering cross-border activities for go-to-market strategies in each other’s countries, enabling cross-border co-founding teams, strategic partnerships, or investments. Additionally, structured impact analysis and reporting can be incorporated to assess outcomes, along with support for the development and implementation of pilot projects to test collaborative models.

Dr. Mugdha is Head of Preincubation and Learning at Venture Center, Pune, India. She is responsible for driving preincubation mentoring programmes & initiatives and leading skill development programmes for early-stage innovators. With 12+ years of experience at Venture Center, she has been providing technical mentoring to startups, particularly to the social impact startups. She was a Fellow of the Chevening Rolls Royce Science, Innovation, Policy and Leadership Programme, 2016 at the Said Business School, University of Oxford and holds a Ph.D. in Health Sciences.