First ‘ideation centre’ to come up July end

NEWDELHI: The New Delhi Municipal Council is set to start its first “Smart City Ideation Centre” at Palika Bazaar in Connaught Place, which will provide work stations to at least 120 selected candidates or young entrepreneurs, working on some creative ideas or projects related with infrastructure development.

The facility will be functional by the end of this month.

“The centre will provide necessary help and logistics for candidates to convert their technology ideas into commercial success. The selection of candidates will be done by a governing body, which will have members or experts from NDMC, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) and Invest India,” said Naresh Kumar, chairman, NDMC.

“Besides getting access to suitable infrastructure, the candidates will get an opportunity to interact with experts from finance, legal, industrial, digital and other backgrounds, twice in a week at the centre,” said a senior NDMC official.

As soon as the civic agency finalises the fee structure, registration forms will be uploaded on NDMC’S official website, said a civic body official.

The experts said that the idea of setting up “ideation centre” is good, but it should emphasise on promoting new technologies.

“There are so many e -commerce companies in market already and there’s little space for new ones. It’s better we help the upcoming generation to understand or work on new ideas with has technology at its core,” said V Ramgopal Rao, director of Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.