Introduction about AIM & AIC
Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) is an Indian government initiative aimed at fostering
innovation and entrepreneurship. It supports startups and innovators by providing a platform
for mentorship, access to funding, and infrastructure through the Atal Innovation Mission
scheme.
AIM’s (Atal Innovation Mission) objective is to develop new programmes and policies for
fostering innovation in different sectors of the economy, provide platforms and collaboration
opportunities for different stakeholders, and create an umbrella structure to oversee the
innovation & entrepreneurship ecosystem of the country. Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) has
established 56 Atal Incubation Centres (AIC) and 14 Atal Community Innovation
Centres across the country.
In recent times, policies have focused on geographical inclusion. For example, AIM is going
to start building Atal Innovation Community Centres to promote innovation in previously
unserved regions. Additionally, TIDE 2.0 (launched in 2019) has started grouping incubators
based on their location, focus, age and experience, where one group of incubators consists of
incubators located in underdeveloped ecosystems. Furthermore, in 2020 AIM launched
‘AIM-iCrest’ with an aim to build capacity of AIM incubators as organizations in hope to
create world class incubators. Some of the more recent initiatives indicate a model shift in
how policymakers look at incubation as it not only involves geographical inclusion but also
requires capacity building of incubators, giving them an identity as organizations with their
own set of challenges.
About Our Incubator
The North Eastern region is rich with natural bio-diversity. Since ancient time, livelihood is
dependent on agri-allied activities. Now, there is a great urgency for developing and
nurturing a start-up eco-system in order to support start-ups in this agri-allied sector and
create more jobs in the future. This will be the pathway for development and diversification
of agri-allied sector in the North Eastern region where main focus is to develop B2B
enterprises.
COF R-ABI has established (2018-19) the best-in-class Innovation Centre to facilitate
absorption and commercialization of various agri-allied technologies to promote idea and
seed stage startups in the North East region supported by Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers
Welfare. Govt,. of India. Till now we have completed 8 th cohort/batch of incubation and
incubated 132 no Idea and Seed Stage Startups and grab a Grant-in-aid amount of 1.48 Cr
from the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. Govt. of India.
Central Agricultural University, Imphal (CAU-I) has been developing many technologies in
the pre-harvest and post-harvest domain to increase farm productivity and reduce cost of
production, besides post-harvest processing, value addition and enhancing marketability of a
wide range of products of the region.
“Incubate” relates with a “Bird sitting on her own eggs, caring and nurturing them, hatching
them – to enable them to take birth, learn, grow and fly.” In the context of business too, an
incubator has a similar purpose and intent – to allow a potential startup to be given proper
environment and resources, nurture and care for its growth until they learn to move on from
the Incubator.
Similarly, Our Incubator has been set up to create a strong and supportable Startup ecosystem
/ support infrastructural fascility to build successful startups in the area of Agri and allied
sector. Our Incubator has elements such as physical space and infrastructure, common service
delivery systems, network activities, partnerships and linkages – both institutional and
individual, mentors and advisors – to enable startups to structure their business and make
them “investment-ready” to potential investors. After COVID-19 we have adapted hybrid
model of incubation i.e.; physical as well as virtual incubation.
Our Vision
It is visualized that Our Incubator will promise well for the promotion and facilitation of Agri
and allied sector startups. Our Incubator has plans to work on a larger scale in every district
of North Eastern states as well as in other states also.