Accelerating The Conversion Of Academic Research Into Life Science Innovations For Society: Life Sciences Entrepreneurship Development Program or Life-ED is an Entrepreneurship Development Program For Bengaluru-Based Science Scholars & Faculty of colleges, universities and research orgnazations.

It is well established across the globe that the key to societal progress is by creating breakthrough technologies. The way to accelerate this creation is by equipping the country’s scientific community with expertise and access to Modern Research Tools and inculcating a strong Innovation-driven Mindset to transform bench discoveries into solutions that address societal challenges. These coupled with entrepreneurial knowhow can be vital skill sets in promoting indigenous innovation and science-led entrepreneurships in a country like India. Current academic structure lacks this three-pronged approach.

The Life-ED aims to address this gap through a structured program that will engage with academic institutions having a scholarly community of students, teachers, researchers, & academic innovators by strengthening current skill sets and honing analytical and critical thinking talent.

The Life-ED Bengaluru Program would aim to:

Promote entrepreneurship as a viable and exciting career option within the young scholarly community by providing exposure to entrepreneurial concepts and culture and familiarizing them with the basic know-how required for starting up.

Inspire teachers, researchers, and faculty members affiliated with different academic institutions towards enterprise formation with their discoveries for developing innovations with commercial and impact potential for society.

Facilitate networking across institutions and organizations to accelerate team building and stimulate collaborative attempts at creating comprehensive solutions for societal problems.

Promote engagement of aspiring innovators & entrepreneurs with industry domain experts for understanding the market needs and the strategic tools required for the successful development and deployment of commercial innovative solutions.

Provide visibility to the innovative ideas for solutions to be developed at national and international-level platforms for further growth and impact.

The program will consist of 2 main focus areas

A – ‘Young Scholars To Entrepreneurs’ Initiative:
Through this initiative, the program would encourage the creation of teams of early-stage entrepreneurs comprising of young science graduates, doctoral students, and post-docs, from core science to medical and engineering streams.

B – ‘Faculty With A Start-up’ Initiative:
Through this initiative, the program would promote entrepreneurship adoption in teachers, faculty members, principal investigators, etc., using dedicated mentorship modules.

With this program, C-CAMP intends to create a pool of enthusiastic young research scholars and academicians trained to take on different societal problems using innovative solutions, which would be developed and deployed through the entrepreneurial route. Furthermore, the mass of academic life science scholars & researchers exposed to the industrial know-how as part of this program would contribute in different capacities towards the growing Bioeconomy of the country.

Letters of intent have already been signed between C-CAMP and the following universities and colleges – MS Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences, Reva University, Presidency University, JAIN (Deemed-to-be) University, NITTE College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Jyothy Institute of Technology, Krupanidhi Group of Institutions, Maharani Lakshmi Ammanni College for Women, RV College of Engineering and Al Ameen College of Pharmacy.

Floated independently by C-CAMP, Life-ED is actively looking for partners and supporters for this initiative such as Philanthropists & Organizations (Corporates, Foundations, etc.), with a strong focus on Advancing Science Education, Enhancing Research Skills, and Fostering Life Science Innovations for Societal benefit.