There has been a rapid retreat of 9 to 5 jobs with an adjacent growth of startups. The present generation in play is progressing towards a society of self-driven and homegrown ventures. But the ideas only bear fruits if proper mentorship, funds and other key requirements for such early stage businesses are fulfilled. With an upsurge in startups, incubator programs and centers have also been developed by various organizations offering the much-needed nourishment to the potential businesses.
Keeping the same in mind, the widely known Indian-American venture capitalist Gururaj Deshpande is soon to set up a startup incubator in Hubballi, about 400km away from Bengaluru. The to-be-launched incubator will be the country’s largest incubation center with an area of about 82,000-sq. feet. The center will be inaugurated in September and will host about 200 startups. The project is said to be an evolution of the Deshpande Foundation, founded in 2008 by none other than Gururaj Deshpande along with his wife.
Talking about the man behind the concept, Gururaj ‘Desh’ Deshpande is the President and Chairman of Sparta Group LLC, a family-owned investment office and is also the Chairman of Tejas Networks. The entrepreneur has been in the industry for over three decades and also co-chaired a National Council to support President Obama’s innovation and entrepreneurship strategy in 2010
The self-made businessman was himself born in Hubballi and constantly strives towards the advancement of the nation. He’s an IIT-Madras alumnus, who’s also been featured on the Forbes 400 listing of Richest Americans.
The foundation’s major program is known as Sandbox and works on Hubballi’s social entrepreneurship model. The said program emerged with the establishment of the foundation and acts as a platform of resources and mentorship for local young business aspirants and scale up their potential to promote self-sustaining entrepreneurship. Currently, 50 startups are part of the Sandbox revolving around innovative and creative ideas.
The planned incubation center will majorly sustain the startups which are a part of the Sandbox initiative. Other than that ventures rising in the Dharwad district will also be pulled in. The center with a seating capacity of 1,200 people beats T-Hub, an incubator in Telangana. The latter is presently India’s biggest incubation center, set up in a 70,000-sqft building. Sharing his ideas on the project, Naveen Jha, CEO of Deshpande foundation said,
The new facility will have a makers’ lab, 3D printing lab, IoT (internet-of-things) lab. It will focus on all sectors — from manufacturing and agriculture to IoT.
