T-Hub partners Suzuki Motor Corp to accelerate innovation at start-ups in India

Hyderabad-based T-Hub, which leads India’s innovation ecosystem, has announced its partnership with Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) to accelerate the growth of the Indian start-up ecosystem.  With this collaborative partnership, T-Hub Suzuki Motor Corporation, aims to provide mentoring and support Indian entrepreneurs to access Japan’s ecosystem.

Suzuki Innovation Center (SIC), which is an open innovation platform, will provide growth opportunities to T-Hub-incubated start-ups. In addition, SIC provides an open platform for new connections and innovation between India and Japan among academia, industries and start-ups. Entrepreneurs will get to engage and innovate with universities and industries from India as well as Japan in domains of sustainability, rural development, supply chain, agritech, and mobility. T-Hub through its robust innovation ecosystem will help SIC to gain exposure to a variety of innovative solutions from startups and help them boost their experiences and expertise in the innovation ecosystem. T-Hub and SIC will also collaborate on events, leadership opportunities, workshops and mentoring to bridge the gap between the Japan and Indian start-up ecosystem.

Srinivas Rao Mahankali, CEO of T-Hub, said, “Through our partnership with Suzuki Motor Corporation, we are aiming to address broad challenges on and beyond mobility, in India and Japan, on top of the synergistic combination of technology and design. The partnership will empower T-Hub entrepreneurs to scale globally enduring homegrown technology startups with access to mentorship, and guidance from Suzuki Innovation Centre.”

The MoU was signed in the presence of  Hideaki Domichi, former ambassador Japan to India, and Director, Suzuki Motor Corporation; Kinji Saito, Director and Senior Managing Officer, Global Automobile Marketing, Suzuki Motor Corporation; Vipul Jindal, Execution Head, Suzuki Innovation Center; Srinivas Rao Mahankali, CEO, T-Hub, and Ms. Prathyusha Koneti, Head – Corporate Innovation, T-Hub

“Our partnership with T-Hub will synergize the startup ecosystem between India and Japan. Suzuki`s latest initiative, ‘Suzuki Innovation Center (SIC)’ will play an instrumental role in promoting open-innovation with start-ups along with support of partners like T-Hub,” said Kinji Saito, Director and Senior Managing Officer Global Automobile Marketing, Suzuki Motor Corporation.”

Catalyst for global opportunities

This one-year agreement is expected to act as a catalyst by revolutionising open innovation and creating global avenues for the Indian start-up ecosystem. In addition, this will enable T-hub start-ups to access various benefits such as-validating their solutions, building POC (Proof-of-Concept), funding opportunities and access to a vast pool of global networks.

T-Hub’s programs have been successfully scaling startups in partnership with a robust ecosystem of partners. T-Hub, to date, has impacted over 2,000 start-ups through various programs and initiatives, has over 600 global and national corporate partners and has provided 2,000 mentor connects to help the startup scale. T-Hub will continue to drive collaboration between startups and leading innovation ecosystems worldwide, providing global market-access opportunities to start-ups.