“We are in talks with Microsoft India Corporation to set up such a facility. We had three rounds of discussions and they expressed their willingness to set up the innovation laboratory, which will benefit the students to explore their ideas,” said Anil Sahasrabuddhe, director of CoEP. The Microsoft team visited the institute earlier this week to hold discussions with the officials and to interact with the students of the entrepreneur development course.

“Microsoft has drafted a detailed framework to help local software economies grow in their own capacity. We have four different programmes under this framework. Setting up of incubation centre and innovative laboratory will part of this initiative,” said Paul Murphy, director of Innovations, Microsoft India Corporation.

“Under this facility, we will provide technical assistance for research and development and also industrial training,” he said.

“With respect to cutting edge technology and need of quality software to be developed in different domains, such facility for students can help explore different ideas,” said A A Sawant, head of the department of computer engineering and information technology, CoEP. “The students have many ideas; but they do not get a chance to work it out at the learning level. With the incubation centre in place, they can experiment on their ideas. Student from every faculty can use this facility. Moreover, they will get a chance to work with the research team of Microsoft.”