ASPIRE-BioNEST at UoH celebrates 3rd anniversary

Gachibowli: ASPIRE-BioNEST, a Life Science incubator at University of Hyderabad, on Tuesday celebrated its third foundation day. The incubator was set up with support from BIRAC, Department of Biotechnology, to nurture, foster and develop enterprises in life sciences.

ASPIRE BioNEST is growing rapidly from its establishment in 2018 and presently hosting 25 start-ups in different areas of life sciences. On this occasion, a newly built BSL2 facility was inaugurated by Vice-Chancellor Prof Appa Rao Podile and dedicated to the incubating start-ups of ASPIRE-BioNEST. Prof S Rajagoapl, the Coordinator of ASPIRE BioNEST welcomed all the participants. Prof GS Prasad, Director of ASPIRE, briefed the gathering on the entrepreneurial ecosystem on the campus. Dr Anil Kondreddy, the COO of ASPIRE BioNEST, briefed about the progress of the incubator and discussed the facilities available.

Prof Appa Rao Podile in his remarks said that although there were efforts made to create the innovation led entrepreneurial ecosystem on the campus, it is shaped now only to a defined structure where it is being recognised through the improved ARIIA ranking, being able to nurture many start-ups and standing tall in the recognition race. He further said that the current development is the result of the collective efforts made by the staff and advisors, specially Dr Yogeswara Rao and Prof Reddana, who contributed significantly in inculcating the innovation ecosystem with an excellent infrastructure. He also stated in his words that this would have not been possible without the grant from BIRAC.

The foundation day lecture was delivered by Prof Shekhar C Mande, Secretary, DSIR & Director General, CSIR, who emphasised the need of a knowledge-based economy for creating more jobs in the private sector. He also mentioned that it is time now to create and nurture more incubators like ASPIRE BioNEST where many potential start-ups would be cultivated that would provide a large number of jobs, besides some of them emerge as knowledge driven enterprises.

As part of the foundation day celebrations, three popular lectures were delivered by notable speakers viz., Naveen Gullapalli, Global Business Head of Novartis in Hyderabad, Prof Unnat Pandit, of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), and Pradeep Jaisingh, cofounder of HealthStart, International Oncology, and Outcancer.org. The programme concluded with vote of thanks by the CEO of ASPIRE-BioNEST, Dr SreedharaVoleti.