Agri-Innovation Centre established at IKP Park
Shamirpet: IKP Knowledge Park is celebrating its 20-year journey through a series of events anchored around its flagship International Knowledge Millennium Conference, IKMC2019, being held at its campus in Genome Valley and at HICC on November 8&9. The theme of IKMC2019 is 'Planet and We: Our Connected Future.'
N Vaghul, former Chairman of ICICI Bank and IKP Knowledge Park, inaugurated the Agri-Innovation Translation Centre at the newly developed 1.10 lakh sft. Sustainability Innovation Centre (SINC) at IKP on Friday, in the presence of guests of honour, Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary (Industries & Commerce, IT & BT), and Dr Renu Swarup, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India, who joined in by Skype.
Congratulating IKP, Jayesh Ranjan said, "This high-end agri-innovation translation facility at IKP is all set to advance the innovation capabilities of not only Hyderabad and Telangana, but also of the entire country. This is indeed a proud moment for the government, the scientific community and people of Telangana."
Explaining the need for a facility of this kind, Deepanwita Chattopadhyay, Chairman and CEO, IKP Knowledge Park, said, "Great endeavours are needed to scale up agri-innovations. The Growth Labs at IKP's Agri-Innovation Translation Centre have come up in response to this need and are equipped with advanced facilities to take agri-innovations to scale. We are eagerly looking forward to seeing some high impact solutions emerging from this Centre."
The inauguration ceremony was followed by a Facility Tour and a Panel Discussion on 'Shaping Tomorrow: IKP2.0 – The Next 20 years.'
IKP Knowledge Park (IKP) is the first not-for-profit wet lab research park and incubator in India, head-quartered in Genome Valley, Hyderabad. It was established in 1999 in a 200-acre eco-friendly campus by ICICI Bank in partnership with the State government of then Andhra Pradesh, under a first of its kind public-private partnership model.
IKP houses Research & Developmental activities of more than 50 large, medium and small companies. DuPont, Laurus Labs, USP, Daicel Chiral, Sai Life Sciences, Adama India, Escientia Bio-Pharma, and Pulse Pharmaceuticals are the Anchor Companies of the Park.
More than 3,000 scientists operate from the Park and 300+ patents have been registered so far. The Life Science Incubator (LSI) at the Park nurtures innovators and start-ups and has thus far supported around 75 start-ups and innovators.