Anant National University launches its incubation center 'Aarambh' to strengthen India's Design start-up ecosystem

Ahmedabad, 2nd August 2021: AnantU, India's first design university in Ahmedabad, announces the launch of their incubation centre, Aarambh. The centre’s vision is to foster a culture of entrepreneurship among the design and architecture fraternity, students/budding entrepreneurs to use Design Thinking for solving societal problems with a long-term impact. 

Aarambh aims to promote the entrepreneurship culture in and around the campus by offering various platforms to budding entrepreneurs to experiment with their business ideas, get one-on-one mentorships from domain experts and renowned professionals from the industry, interact with investors, government, and non-government agencies, and create their own organisation/enterprise. The platform will nurture entrepreneurial thinking, promote business knowledge and inculcate confidence in every student. It would add value to the entrepreneur and make an impact on society at large. 

Partnered with the Student Startup & Innovation Policy, Government of Gujarat, and IIT Kanpur, Aarambh provides an integrated approach to learning that includes converting the idea into a feasible business proposition, connecting to the entrepreneurial network assist in pitching the idea to the right audience. 

Announcing the launch of the incubation centre, Dr. Anunaya Chaubey, Provost, Anant National University said, “The seed of innovation lies in curiosity, how aware are you of the world that you live in and its problems. The next step is to look for indigenous ways to solve these problems instead of trying to replicate models from developed nations. There is a rich scope that lies in indigenous solutions that can be rooted back to age old and sustainable solutions that have been lost in the path of time. Finally, the third step is to actually get into the field and implement the plans that would solve the problems that one started with. Following this path, one could not only be more aware and sensitive about the pressing problems of the society but also develop innovative, sustainable and scalable solutions to the same. At Aarambh, one can expect a platform that would enable the prospective innovators in all the stages mentioned leading to development of the self as well as the society.” 

The incubation centre was launched with the announcement of a University- wide contest for students, called the ‘Ideas contest’. The incubation centre team comprises renowned faculty members; Srikant Sastri, Advisor, Milind Chitale, Associate Professor & Director, Maker Space, Dhaval Monani, Associate Professor & Director, Affordable Housing, Bhaskar Bhatt, Associate Professor & Head of Product Design/MDes (IPD) and Subhalaxmi Mohapatra, Associate Professor and Co-Director, Centre for Urbanism and Cultural Economics, Yuvaraj Sinh Zala, Chief Finance and Accounts Officer, Head, HR and Administration and Prasoon Pandey, Deputy Registrar, Ravinder Kaur, Office Executive.

For more information on the centre: https://anu.edu.in/resources/aarambh-incubation-centre/

About Anant National University: 

Anant National University (AnantU), India’s first design university, is located on a lush green campus in the World Heritage City of Ahmedabad. It was established as a private university in 2016 by an Act of Legislature of the State of Gujarat. AnantU aims to bridge the gap between contemporary socio-economic challenges and sustainable solutions through design thinking. Its widely acclaimed, international, and national faculty facilitate a holistic design education with a liberal arts perspective.