Bengaluru: Social Alpha, an initiative supported by Tata Trusts, along with the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC, an enterprise under Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Union Ministry of Science and Technology, and CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), a constituent of the Council of Scientific and Industrial research (CSIR), has announced the launch of mach33.aero.

mach33.aero is set to be the first Public-Private Partnership in India focused on accelerating innovations in Aerospace. mach33.aero will develop a support eco-system for nurturing start-ups in aerospace and allied engineering housed at a dedicated state-of-the-art centre in the CSIR-NAL campus in Bangalore, with a vision to expand its reach to new geographies in the future.

Speaking on the launch, Ratan N Tata, Chairman, Tata Trusts, said: “I am pleased to note that CSIR-NAL and Social Alpha have joined hands to promote innovations in aerospace engineering with wide ranging applications across Aviation, Defence, Agriculture, and Climate technologies. I hope a number of high impact and scalable solutions emerge from this initiative, creating a new wave of technology entrepreneurship in the country.”

Commodore  (Retd) Amit Rastogi, Chairman and MD, NRDC, said: "As a JV partner of mach33.aero, NRDC has forged strong links with the scientific and industrial community in India and abroad and developed a wide network of research institutions, academia and industry and made formal arrangements with them for the commercialization of know-how developed. NRDC has concluded more than 5000 technology license agreements to a large number of small and medium scale industries paving the way for the success of indigenous technologies and creation of wealth.”

Jitandra J Jadhav, Director, NAL, said: “In recent years, start-ups have been receiving increased attention in many parts of the world especially in the aerospace sector. With the emergence of start-ups backed by leading industries the aerospace technology is propelling us into the future of transportation, be it autonomous vehicles and UAV, hybrid and electric regional aircraft, electric VTOL aircraft, air taxis, and high altitude platform.”

Dr. Shekhar C Mande, Secretary DSIR and DG, CSIR while virtually inaugurating the mach33.aero congratulated team Social Alpha, NRDC and CSIR-NAL for setting up a first of its kind incubation Centre in the country to create and support eco-system for nurturing start-ups in aerospace and allied engineering. This will catalyze, incubate and accelerate start-ups and SMEs towards Atmanirbhar Bharat in these sectors of national strategic importance. /BI/