India To Set Up Graphene Engineering And Innovation Centre To Empower Emerging Tech Startups

India will soon set up a graphene engineering and innovation centre in Kerala to drive commercialisation of the advanced material and to empower emerging tech startups.

Launching the ‘Graphene-Aurora programme’ at an event in Maker Village Kochi, Kerala on Monday (14 August), electronics and IT secretary Alkesh Kumar Sharma announced that a section 8 company (not for profit) called ‘India Graphene Engineering and Innovation Centre (I-GEIC)’ will be set up and the initial operations will start from the recently opened facility of Government of Kerala at Digital Science Park in Trivandrum.

According to Sharma, the I-GEIC will fill the gap between R&D and commercialisation by providing a complete facility to startup and industry.

Sharma added that it will nurture the deep/emerging graphene technology and innovation ecosystem that can guide, develop, implement, and support SMEs and startups to commercialise developed graphene technologies for scale adoption, according to a statement from the Ministry of Electronics and IT.

He also mentioned that creation of a commercialisation eco-system for graphene as an emerging technology would help India take a pole position in the world’s new material market.