The India Innovation Growth Program (IIGP) has been one of India’s longest standing public-private partnerships between Government of India’s Department of Science & Technology (DST) and Lockheed Martin Corporation. The goal of the Program is to build an innovation pipeline in India, and it has facilitated access to capital, industry partnerships and resources sought by entrepreneurs. Through a wide outreach campaign spreading over 100 plus cities across India, the program has received and evaluated over 8,000 and more ideas.
The 2018 IIGP 2.0 has additional partners: the Tata Center for Technology and Design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Center for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.
“IIGP 2.0 aims to address the specific challenges faced by innovators in scaling their innovations. It is focused on scaling innovations with a strong societal impact as well as cutting-edge industrial innovations, by taking entrepreneurs through the stages of ideation, innovation and acceleration,” says Nirankar Saxena, assistant secretary general of the industry body Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, another IIGP partner.
Finalists who make it through the first two rounds of selections this year will travel to the United States for further mentoring at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In past years, IIGP finalists have visited the IC2 Institute at The University of Texas, Austin and Stanford Graduate School of Business, California.
“Partnerships with these universities have helped Indian innovators and entrepreneurs learn best practices from the U.S. on innovation and technology commercialization,” says Saxena.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
