Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Professor IIT Madras and Chairman, Immersive Technology and Entrepreneurship Labs
| Photo Credit:
BIJOY GHOSH
India’s deep tech ecosystem needs a consortium of scientists, technology leaders and startups to work together to solve the country’s major problems, according to Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Professor IIT Madras and Chairman, Immersive Technology and Entrepreneurship Labs.
Speaking at the Tamil Nadu Global Startup Summit 2025, Jhunjhunwala emphasised that individual scientists or startups working in silos can only create limited impact but a multi-disciplinary and multi-institution scientists working together with startups will lead India towards technology leadership
“India has over 1,50,000 scientists spread across educational institutions, research labs and the industry along with a surplus of talent that needs to be nurtured to solve problems which seemingly have no solutions,” he said.
Citing examples of such multi-stakeholder groups Jhunjhunwala said that teams of startup founders along with scientists from the IIT Madras research park have made efforts to mitigate issues like water logging, urban transportation and assistive technologies among others.
Beyond Make in India
In his address, Jhunjhunwala said that Make In India alone can not drive growth. “Most Make in India initiatives have very little value addition with components being imported and assembled,” he said.
We need to be able to design and develop our own products, failing which our MSME’s will continue to be in doldrums. Only when we design our products here, the smaller components that are produced by MSME’s can be used,” he added.
Beyond Government Funding
Jhunjhunwala mentioned that for incubation centres to succeed they need to be run like a business enterprise. “You cannot depend on the government or venture funds alone. governments can be an enabler but not a manager,” he said.
Advising startups, he urged founders to focus on structured learning, discipline and resilience. He said success comes from consistent mentoring and steady growth through small, milestone-based funding.
(The writer is in Coimbatore at the Invitation of Startup TN)
Published on October 10, 2025
