About CSIE

 

The Center for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CSIE) at IIT-Madras was founded in August 2010 with a focus on teaching and research related to social enterprise in India. It aims to bring together the innovation and entrepreneurship aspects of IITM by creating knowledge and understanding that will be relevant to the problems that the poor in India face.

 

Why Social Entrepreneurship at IIT Madras?

IIT Madras has been involved in the field of social entrepreneurship since 2002, when it partnered with the Lemelson Foundation’s RAMP program for social entrepreneur, as well as Villgro Innovations Foundation, a Chennai-based social business incubator.

In 2010, recognizing the need to build a full-fledged centre focusing on social entrepreneurship within the Institution, CSIE was established, with support from the Lemelson Foundation, the IITM Alumni Batch of 1982, 1984 and 1986 and Villgro Innovations Foundation.

CSIE seeks to distinguish itself through:

  • Its focus on delivering social enterprise knowledge primarily to engineering students, with the aim of developing their ability to develop and deliver technology solutions that creates social impact
  • Its focus on academic research that will seek to address problems exclusively within the Indian context
 

Our Mission:

To build an environment that will facilitate the creation of social enterprise knowledge through research and empower students to apply their entrepreneurship abilities to develop solutions for greater social impact through academia.

 

How do we achieve this?

Education – academic programs on social innovation and entrepreneurship for students across disciplines and degrees at IIT Madras.

Research – CSIE provides an enabling environment for both student and faculty researchers interested in social enterprise research within the IIT campus.

Catalyzing innovation – encouraging young innovators and entrepreneurs by assisting in the development of socially-beneficial products and ideas

Collaboration – creating an ecosystem that extends to other technology institutions, including IITs.

 

Copyrights © 2011. All Rights Reserved