The Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) was established at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) through grants from the Government of Gujarat, National Innovation Foundation, and IIMA in 2001.

Objectives of CIIE
Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship aims at fostering innovation and entrepreneurship development through research, incubation, consultancy and training in hi-tech and mass impact technologies to enhance welfare and competitiveness of the Indian economy. CIIE has formed linkages with other Science & Technology institutions in the country and with various research laboratories in the public & private domains. CIIE also plans to gradually build a national & international patent and innovator database for use of researchers and the incubatees.

Activities of CIIE
CIIE will pursue activities in the following areas:
1. Research and Teaching:
CIIE is a centre of excellence, endeavours and actively pursues research relating to various dimensions of technological change and innovation related entrepreneurship. The Centre aims at imparting training and disseminating knowledge in the field of innovation and venture planning through various workshops, seminars, venture conclaves, case publications, interaction with entrepreneurs along with student projects around incubation.

2. Incubation:
CIIE has established the Indian Incubator for Innovation based Enterprises (I3E). The Incubator will help innovators successfully commercialize their innovation through an enterprise. I3E at CIIE offers incubation support to outstanding high-tech and mass impact innovations. The incubation suite provided by CIIE to its incubatees includes infrastructure and networking support apart from dedicated mentoring from experts.

The incubator has developed networks of people and institutions that would help the incubation projects with technical support, testing facilities, materials, prototyping facilities, legal assistance, venture funding, patent filing, etc.

3. Workshops & Seminars:
CIIE organizes workshops on areas of academic interest as well as those that would help innovators & entrepreneurs. The workshops bring experts together from various fields to address issues of management of innovation & the commercialization process.

Various Events being organized by CIIE
The Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship regularly organizes a number of programs and events in order to pursue its basic objective of encouraging and providing information to innovators. The following events are being scheduled in 2007-2008:

	Innovator Search Program: Anveshan The Centre is organizing a one of its kind, innovator search program to recognize innovators; idea generators and business plan developers. Anveshan is divided into three categories: Start up Program: Start-up Program targets innovators who have developed a high-tech or mass impact technology with a prototype and wish to commercialize it. Top Innovation Program: Centre shall provide technology transfer/licensing support through networking with industry associations, entrepreneurs, corporations in the respective sectors through this program. Ideaz Program: Ideaz program targets innovators having an idea to address a specific challenge area, which can solve practical social and economic problems. The aim is to identify technology based ideas that have the potential of getting quickly converted into an innovation leading to commercial application.
	Solar Innovation Program Realizing the growing energy needs of the country and increasing dependency on fossil fuels and its impact on the global climate, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and CIIE @ IIM Ahmedabad has decided to launch Solar Innovation Program. This program attempts to identify and develop technologies for sustainable development.
	Microsoft Imagine Cup Innovation Accelerator 2008 The Imagine cup is a premier global software competition for students across the world. Now in its sixth year, Microsoft is calling on young programmers, artists and technologists around the world to "imagine a world where technology enables a better environment for all."  After the Imagine Cup: The Imagine Cup Innovation Accelerator – this is open to all the students who participate in the Imagine Cup from all over India and are automatically entered into this competition. Teams selected for the Innovation Accelerator program receive technical support and business coaching from CIIE to create innovative and financially viable technology and applications of the future.
	Nokia A joint venture betweens CIIE, Nokia Research Center and NID will work together on “Development of innovative design and application of mobile phones for rural and low-income group”. The project would broadly aim at Market Research, Identify unique applications for the product to target the underserved market and developing prototypes for various applications.
	Pirmal Prize The Piramal Prize is a partnership between The Piramal Foundation and the Center for Innovation, Incubation, and Entrepreneurship at the Indian Institute of Management established by the Ajay G. Piramal Foundation in 2007 to encourage and support bold entrepreneurial ideas which will lead to the democratization of healthcare for India’s rural and marginalized urban communities.