Srinagar: Sher-i-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir has won two Biotechnology Ignition Grants (BIG) worth Rs 50 lakh each from Biotechnol-ogy Industry Research As-sistance Council (BIRAC). The list of the awardees of the BIG grant as seed money for validation of Proof of Concept for startups was released by BIRAC. The BIRAC BIG awar-dees for 2023, include two SKUAST-K young faculty members, Dr Kaley Khan, Assistant Professor (Agri Engineering) and Dr Mudasir Ahmad Mir, Assistant Professor (Plant Biotech-nology).
With these two awardees, SKUAST-K has emerged as the No.1 State Agriculture University in the country and in the un-ion territory of Jammu and Kashmir to have earned the highest number of BIRAC BIG grants, nine in total.This winning streak is the result of an effec-tive ecosystem for innova-tors & startups created in SKUAST-K in pursuit of its mission of transforming itself as the “Innovation lead Farm University”. The different interlinked com-ponents of this ecosystem including: an incubation centre (SKIIE Centre), a vibrant innovation & startup policy for faculty & stu-dents (SISP), a Technology Business Incubator (iTBI, Nidhi) of the Department of Science & Technology New Delhi, 10 state-of-art in-house dedicated R&D Labs and Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI&ML) Centre.Over a short period of a few years, SKUAST-K’s vibrant ecosystem for in-novators and incubates has yielded significant results. These include 17 registered startups of students and faculty and 9 patents, and a number of commercialised technologies.Vice Chancellor, SKUAST-K, Prof Nazir Ah-mad Ganai while congratu-lating the two young faculty members impressed upon them to take advantage of the support system of the university at its Incubation Centre for commercializa-tion of the technologies. Vice Chancellor also com-plimented Prof Haroon R Naik, Director Planning & Monitoring, SKUAST-K and Naveed Hamid, Chief Execu-tive Officer, SKIIE Centre for their significant contri-bution in creating a vibrant ecosystem of Innovation, In-cubation and Startup.