Manipal University established the Innovation Centre and Technology Business Incubator (MUTBI) at Manipal Institute of Technology as a part of its growth in innovation and entrepreneurship in 2010. The initiative forms part of its vision to become a world class university. 

The centre has been encouraging student innovations and start-ups and is developing an ecosystem for boosting research and Innovation outcome of MU, said co-chairman of MUTBI Luis Miranda.

In the first of its kind initiative in the country, MUTBI will set up satellite centers at Manipal University institutions at Sikkim in June this year and Jaipur on March 21, 2012 to support the alumni. “Currently the Centre in Manipal supports six companies with nearly 15 employees and 45 interns working for them. The management hopes to target 50 companies and employee strength of 1000 in the next five years,” Luis said. 

This plan to start the satellite centers is in line with the Social obligation of the University to encourage and nurture innovation and entrepreneurship among students, faculty and people of the region. 

The policy and procedures applicable to MUTBI will be extended to these centers. One faculty coordinator each will be from the representative University who will be managing the centre.

The operating expenses of the Centre are supported by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, with a funding of Rs 3.3 crores and an additional fund of Rs 66 Lakhs from MSME, Government of India, he added. 

MUTBI CEO Professor Manohara Pai M M said the centre was working on a project to generate Green power up to 2MW, through Solar photovoltaic, using the roof top model. Initially, the power generated will be available to MU and gradually extended to other sites. Our vision is to make Manipal as the first solar city to generate 50- 100 per cent power used during day time from solar energy. With this, MU would become the first university in the country to achieve this feat.  The Centre is introducing a new course titled Innovation and Entrepreneurship, as an open elective, with 3 to 6 credits, for the benefit of students of Manipal University. 

A unique Pre-Incubation facility will be attached with the course as a launch pad for start-ups. 

Based on the experience gained from this, a School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship will be setup in the academic year 2013-14, for an MBA/Executive MBA program. The course and the program will be run jointly with the support of TAPMI, Manipal, he said. 

Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Mobile applications and Game development is envisioned in order to promote inclusive growth, it is proposed to set up a CoE in mobile applications.  

Besides the University is setting up a World class Central Instrumentation Facility with an outlay of Rs 6 Crores at MIT, he said.