The Journey through Idea, Innovation and Enterprise: Role of Technology Business Incubators – a Practitioner’s Perspective

Abstract

Ideas germinate Innovation and Innovation has potential to create Enterprises. Innovation is the key to Societal progress and indeed, progress of mankind. The world over, Business Incubators have played the role of a catalyst, a facilitator and an enabler of Enterprises based on Innovation by providing the initial “Life support system” to a germinating Enterprise. Such system provides the necessary nursery for nurturing Entrepreneurial talent. Typically, the Business Incubators provide a “Green house” for caring the growth of Enterprises by providing the necessary physical infrastructure, technology back up, funding support,mentoring support and sometimes even market linkages. The Technology Business Incubators [TBI] encourages nurturing of budding technology ideators and convert them into Technology based solution providers through the provision of the various facilities. The conceptual framework of such institutions is novel and the relevance of such centres to developing Economies is immense. The challenges vis-à-vis opportunities associated with the process of incubation are loaded in favor of the later and as such it is beneficial to set up such centers at “Institutions of Excellence”. The role of TBIs in Indian context has been analyzed with a cross country reference and also new frontiers in the Business Incubation space. It has been inferred that such a mechanism would go a long way in improving the quality of life and the local economy by commercializing potent ideas and innovations and making wealth out of knowledge.