The Open Challenge Programme of STPI Electropreneur Park seeks to identify and support innovative startups in the ESDM domain.
“If India has to become a product nation it has to become on the basis of innovation and risk-taking. That is where the synergy between academia and industry is inevitable.” said Dr. Anuj Grover, Associate Professor at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi (IIIT-D), in reply to a question by EFY, at the STPI Electropreneur Summit, 2026 at the institution.
S.K. Marwah, Advisor, R&D Electronics Division, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said that the government has decided that at least 10 per cent of global Standard Essential Patents (SEPs), for the upcoming 6G infrastructure has to be filed by India. Coordination between the industry and academia for the same is important.
Rajoo Goel, Secretary General, Electronics Industrial Association of India said that commercialization of R&D output is important from an Industrial standpoint. Being a product nation, essentially means being a step ahead of a manufacturing nation, and setting up globally recognised brands.
Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), an autonomous society under MeitY, established in 1991, organised the Electropreneur Park Summit, 2026 at IIIT-Delhi. The key highlight of the summit was the launch of the ‘Open Challenge Programme’ which seeks to identify and support innovative startups in the ESDM (Electronic System Design and Manufacturing) domain.
The summit provided an opportunity for venture capitalists and young entrepreneurs to interact and funds to flow through academic institutions. Along with IIIT-D, 11 partner institutions, termed as spoke centres attended the summit. Along with them Indian Angel Network services Private Limited and Solara VC also participated.
The 11 spoke centres that provide access to incubation, across the region include:
- ACIC RISE Association Chandigarh Engineering College
- CGC Landran
- NSUT Incubation and Innovation Foundation (NSUT IIF)
- KR Mangalam Incubation and Entrepreneurship Center (KEIC Foundation)
- Manav Rachna University Faridabad
- IIT Mandi Catalyst
- NewGen IEDC-Business and innovation Centre, University of Kashmir
- MNIT Innovation and Incubation Centre (MIIC) MNIT Jaipur
- AKGEC Skills Foundation, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh
- Sharda Launchpad Federation, (Sharda University), Gr. Noida
- Runway Incubator, UPES Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (UCIE)
Delivering the Keynote address, K.K. Singh, Joint Secretary, MeitY spoke about the initiatives being undertaken by the ministry to support the ESDM sector. He added that the true benchmark for success of Electropreneur Park (EP) will be converting the talent into commercialised intellectual property and then further on to globally competitive products.
EP 1.0 delivered 129 products, 27 trademarks, 66 patent filings and approximately $16 million in cumulative revenue. With EP 2.0 the target is to nurture 500 startups to build a strong and interconnected ESDM innovation ecosystem across North India.
Arvind Kumar, Director General, STPI noted three developing trends in the startup ecosystem in India. Firstly, from the initial phase of aggregator startups, young entrepreneurs are moving towards deep-tech companies. Secondly, a lot of ideas are coming in from Tier-II and Tier-III cities. And lastly, there is a renewed interest in Electronic design startups rather than just manufacturing services.
Many startups with national and international reaches which began with Electropreneur Park described their journey and future prospects. These included Electrifuel which produces smart batteries for electric vehicles, and EVI technologies producing EV chargers. Apart from these there were companies working in the medical sector like GenElek Technologies producing AI-Powered robotic exoskeletons for people with mobility impairments, as well as Univlabs which produces Laparoscopy equipment and surgical camera systems.
S.K. Marwah in a closing address said that the real question is can India move from being a large electronic manufacturing base to a globally competitive product technology base. This could only be done if we build a complete ecosystem moving from assembly to design, from design to product and from product to globally competitive IPs.
