Olir and TANCAM Partnership to Drive Innovation and Accelerate Startups’ Product Development in Tamil Nadu

Olir Enables TN Startups to Accelerate Commercialisation of Product Ideas at TIDCO’s CoE

Chennai, India – Olir, a one-day startup meet organized by StartupTN and TIDCO on April 13, 2023, enabled 250 startups from the state to explore ways to accelerate the commercialization of their product ideas. The event included a tour of the Tamil Nadu Center of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing (TANCAM), a multi-sector Centre of Excellence, located at the TIDEL Park in Chennai. It witnessed the signing of MoUs between 14 startups and TANCAM, a Centre of Excellence established by TIDCO in association with Dassault Systemes. TANCAM provides a dedicated platform that involves 3D modeling, Simulation, Digital Manufacturing, and Product Life Cycle Management to support startups, MSMEs, and students across Tamil Nadu to design, test, and develop their product ideas in a range of high-tech industries.

The startups that participated at Olir represented a wide range of high-tech industries that included deep tech, advanced manufacturing, robotics, e-commerce, aerospace & defence, agritech, biotech, medtech, healthtech, edtech, fintech, and spacetech. During the TANCAM tour, participants were given a demonstration of the center’s 3DEXPERIENCE platform, a collaborative 3D modeling and simulation application for product design and testing.

S Krishnan IAS, Additional Chief Secretary of Industries, Investment Promotion & Commerce Department, provided the keynote address at the OLIR event, while Sivarajah Ramanathan, Mission Director & CEO - StartupTN, delivered a special address. Jayashree Muralidharan, IAS, Managing Director, TIDCO, and B Krishnamoorthi, IOFS, Managing Director, TANCAM, also addressed the participants.

In his keynote address, Krishnan highlighted that the intra-connect within government departments and the inter-connect with the private sector have been improving and expressed confidence that initiatives like ‘Olir’ will carry forward this momentum, resulting in better outcomes for all the stakeholders. Noting that Tamil Nadu is fundamentally a manufacturing State, he stressed the importance of sustaining leadership and innovating in manufacturing, especially in the current landscape where the trend is moving towards the reshoring of manufacturing. He highlighted how manufacturing startups are different from other sectors and for whom the common facilities and Centre of Excellences will be significant leverage.

The Founders, Co-founders, and CXOs of high-tech startups appreciated the organizers for providing an opportunity for them to meet up and explore multiple possibilities to accelerate their design, prototype, development, testing, and go-to market approaches. And out of those 250 startups visited, seven signed MoUs with TANCAM on the same day, from various domains such as advanced manufacturing, robotics, Space tech, Electric vehicle, and Agritech. As per the MoUs signed, TANCAM will understand their product requirements (New product Development/Product enhancements) and will shape them with the highest precision using Dassault Systemes 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

3DEXPERIENCE portfolio solutions are enabling innovators across the globe to work together and share meaningful causes, goals, and visions in a network effect that amplifies an individual’s impact on innovation and job creation and their contribution to healthy and sustainable economies. The Startups which are all signed with TANCAM, will use the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to accelerate the development of all their engineering and electrification projects. The platform unifies design and engineering across enterprises in a single digital environment, connecting the multiple disciplines involved in the development of a project. The startup teams can seamlessly collaborate, design, and engineer in real time—from anywhere at any time—to share their diverse knowledge and know-how, improve product traceability, and reduce costs.

The 3DEXPERIENCE platform brings value to startups, which can accelerate their role in this shift by imagining new vehicle concepts and validating their feasibility faster. This facilitates long-term growth as electric vehicle adoption advances. The journey from ideation to creation starts when startups are free to imagine how things could be instead of how they are. When they possess tools such as the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, they are enabled to imagine collaboratively. Collaboration and creativity become one, creating the dream product of aspiring startups and propelling them forward.

TANCAM is also providing upskilling training and workshops for the technical teams of the startups. So far, the team has conducted upskilling courses for about 344 candidates through in-house and Spoke facilities. Also have upskilled about 4,015 students through the Tamil Nadu government’s NAAN MUDHALVAN skill development program.

Image Source: TANCAM