MoU signed to promote defense innovation in Marathwada region

- Magic selected as Partner Incubator of iDEX

- Initiative of Defense Ministry

Aurangabad:

The Marathwada Accelerator for Growth and Incubation Council (MAGIC), by CMIA has been selected as the partner incubator by Innovation for Defense Excellence (iDEX) through the Defense Innovation Organization (DIO), an initiative of Ministry of Defense.

MAGIC has been included in the select incubators in India and this will give a big boost to defense sector industries and innovation in Aurangabad and Marathwada region. The iDEX aims to create an ecosystem in the defense sector, which will promote innovation and technology development in the defense sector that can be leveraged by multi-disciplinary research and development (R&D) organizations, start-ups and innovators.

Giving more information, Milind Kank, director, MAGIC said that MAGIC is now selected as a Partner Incubator (PI) of iDEX and an official MOU was signed during the Manthan event at Defense Expo 2022 in Gandhinagar, Gujarat on Tuesday.

Magic one among 12 incubators

The MoD has so far signed agreements with 12 major incubators in the country. Some of these institutes include MAGIC (Aurangabad), KIIT business incubator Bhubaneswar (Odisha), BITS Pilani Institute (Rajasthan), National Defense University (Gujarat), IIIT (Delhi) the Ministry of Defense has signed the agreement.

Will boost development of cluster

CMIA president Nitin Gupta informed that since 2016, efforts are being made to develop a defense cluster through CMIA. MAGIC's recognition as an IDEX partner incubator will be the first step towards developing Aurangabad defense innovation hub.

What will Magic do

MAGIC will encourage and guide startups and MSMEs who can create innovative defense technologies with the Indian armed forces. Running programmes like incubation support and acceleration, encouraging defense innovation at school and college level, prototyping and piloting identified startups with defense related products and technology.