T-Hub, which leads India’s innovation ecosystem, announced its partnership with Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC), a leading corporation in the automobile sector to accelerate the growth of the Indian start-up ecosystem. With this collaborative partnership, T-Hub Suzuki Motor Corporation, aims to provide mentoring and support to Indian entrepreneurs to access Japan’s ecosystem.
Suzuki Innovation Center (SIC), which is an open innovation platform, will provide growth opportunities to T-Hub incubated start-ups. In addition, SIC provides an open platform for new connections and innovation between India and Japan among academia, industries, and startups. Entrepreneurs will get to engage and innovate with universities and industries from India as well as Japan in domains of sustainability, rural development, supply chain, agritech, and mobility. T-Hub through its robust innovation ecosystem will help SIC to gain exposure to a variety of innovative solutions from startups and help them boost their experiences and expertise in the innovation ecosystem. T-Hub and SIC will collaborate on events, leadership opportunities, workshops, and mentoring to bridge the gap between the Japan and Indian startup ecosystem.
MSR (Mahankali Srinivas Rao), CEO of T-Hub, said, “Through our partnership with Suzuki Motor Corporation, we are aiming to address broad challenges on and beyond mobility, in India and Japan, on top of the synergistic combination of technology and design. The partnership will empower T-Hub entrepreneurs to scale globally enduring homegrown technology startups with access to mentorship, and guidance from Suzuki Innovation Centre.”
The MoU was signed in the presence of Mr. Hideaki Domichi, Former ambassador Japan to India, and Director, Suzuki Motor Corporation, Mr. Kinji Saito, Director and Senior Managing Officer, Global Automobile Marketing, Suzuki Motor Corporation, Mr. Vipul Jindal, Execution Head, Suzuki Innovation Center, Mr. Srinivas Rao Mahankali, Chief Executive Officer, T-Hub, Ms. Prathyusha Koneti, Head – Corporate Innovation, T-Hub
A spokesperson, Suzuki Motor Corporation said, “Our partnership with T-Hub will synergize the startup ecosystem between India and Japan. Suzuki`s latest initiative, ‘Suzuki Innovation Center (SIC)’ will play an instrumental role in promoting open innovation with startups along with the support of partners like T-Hub”, said Mr. Kinji Saito, Director and Senior Managing Officer Global Automobile Marketing, Suzuki Motor Corporation.”
This one-year agreement will act as a catalyst revolutionising open innovation and creating global avenues for the Indian Startup ecosystem. In addition, this will enable T-hub startups to access various benefits such as validating their solutions, building POC (Proof-of-Concept), funding opportunities and access to a vast pool of global networks.
T-Hub’s programs have been successfully scaling startups in partnership with a robust ecosystem of partners. T-Hub, to date, has impacted over 2000 startups through various programs and initiatives, has over 600 global and national corporate partners and has provided 2000 mentor connects to help the startup scale. T-Hub will continue to drive collaboration between startups and leading innovation ecosystems worldwide, providing global market-access opportunities to startups.