Hyderabad: While T-Hub is synonymous with start-ups, multinational companies will also be present in the incubator. About 50 companies in the T-Hub Reactor or Phase2, will set-up experience centres to support innovation.
Experiences centres are places where large corporates can showcase the new-age technologies that they are building and allow start-ups to explore. In the T-Hub; there are currently six companies including PwC, Cisco, Samsung and United Technologies Corporation (UTC).
“T-Hub Reactor will be having many more labs and experience centres. In terms of numbers we are looking at 40-50 large MNCs. Of the existing ones, three have already given commitment to be a part of the experience centre.” said Jay Krishnan, T-Hub CEO.
It may be mentioned here that apart from the companies setting up their labs, T-Hub is collaborating with multinational companies like Microsoft, Boeing, Facebook, and Intel among others to run programmes.
Industry experts opine that this will help start-ups in connecting with large corporations as it is a tough task for individuals to reach out to big conglomerates.
Mr Prakash Bodla, Vice President Engineering and Centre Head OTIS (UTC) said “We continue to disrupt ourselves and work on our products. Sometimes, we want someone from outside to look at our product in a totally disruptive way. Start-ups have the risk appetite to quickly test it out and see if it works or not, then immediately change the paradigm”. Conventionally, MNCs have corporate innovation programmes where they try to create new things. Sometimes they do internal innovations using their own personnel or tie up with start-ups to foster external innovation.
Rama Iyer, senior VP, T-Hub said “To ensure innovation happens externally, corporates run programs along with start-ups. Having a lab in T-Hub is an add-on for companies. Through these experience labs, corporates open up their internal platform so that more people can create touch points and value.”
Furthermore, these challenges will allow start-ups to look at how they can incorporate this in their corporate roadmap. “Through this exposure given to the start-ups, corporates can place orders for products from them or make them their partners. They can strategically invest in or acquire the start-up itself if there is a fitment of that skill,” Rama Iyer added.
