Delhi-based MapmyIndia that supplies digital-mapping solutions as well as built-in navigation software to OEMs across the passenger vehicle and commercial vehicle segments in the automotive industry in India, has announced partnering with BITS Pilani.

The Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences (BITS) is a renowned engineering and management institution in the country, attracting top brains enrolling into its undergraduate and post-graduate programmes every year.

MapmyIndia has pledged a sum of Rs 10 million (Rs 1 crore) towards strengthening and promoting the innovation and incubation ecosystem at the BITS campus in Pilani, Rajasthan. The funds from the company will be used for augmenting the upcoming Incubation and Innovation Centre (BPIInC), spread over an area of 20,000 square feet within the campus.

The company will also support promising student entrepreneurs by offering mentorship and advisory, seed or angel funding as well as workspace and incubation to help accelerate their start-up ideas.

According to Rakesh Verma, founder, chairman and MD, MapmyIndia, “My alma mater BITS Pilani has played a key role in shaping me personally and professionally. It gives me great pleasure to be a part of this unique initiative – BPIInC – which will focus on producing job creators rather than seekers.”

Professor Souvik Bhattacharyya, vice-chancellor, BITS Pilani, said, “We are really inspired by the achievements of MapmyIndia in the early 1990s despite the lack of a support system. It is therefore, our commitment and ambition to support innovators on the campus with the resources they would need to be successful.”

“The BITS entrepreneurial and alumni network has been widely acknowledged as one of the most-helpful innovation networks out there. Rakesh Verma has been a longstanding contributor to this network and his collaboration with the Incubation and Innovation Centre will help us scale,” added Professor Arya Kumar, dean, Alumni Relations, BITS Pilani.

The new incubation centre is coming up at a cost of Rs 15 crore and will offer incubation and co-working space for students as well as faculty for idea exchange.