IIT Alumni Council launches Rs 21,000 cr ‘mega fund’ for social initiatives

NEW DELHI: The Alumni Council of Indian Institutes of Technology has launched a fund for social initiatives that will target an “investible corpus” of Rs 21,000 crore.

In this, the council is partnering with University of Mumbai (MU) and the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) which has over five million alumni. The fund will go toward financing startups and innovations the IIT Alumni Council is incubating in the spirit of “Atma Nirbhar Bharat”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for India to be more self-reliant.

In the targeted fund, Rs 3,000 crore will be contributed by the Pan-IIT Fund which is a social fund launched on April 1, 2020.

Another Rs 15,000 crore “Fund of Funds” will provide capital to registered incubatees of the IIT Alumni Council. The “Fund of Funds” compliments the Atal Innovation Mission programs.

“Mega Fund is the dedication of the Alumni community of IITs, MU, and ICT towards supporting the Prime Minister's mission of Atma Nirbhar Bharat,” said Ravi Sharma, president of the IIT Alumni Council. “The alumni have global dominance over the technology sector and intellectual leadership in the venture capital industry. As geography becomes history and survival of the human race outweighs all other considerations – we are heading towards a new knowledge age which will see an acceleration in technology-driven economic development.”