SJCE-STEP and India’s Science & Technology Entrepreneurs Parks

SJCE-STEP, the Science and Technology Entrepreneurs Park on the old SJCE campus in Mysuru, is one of the earliest examples of a technology incubator attached to an Indian engineering college. This guide covers where India’s STEP model came from, what the archived SJCE pages said about the Mysuru park, how STEPs led to today’s technology business incubators and NIDHI schemes, and how a student founder can actually use an incubator like this.

What is a Science & Technology Entrepreneurs Park?

In the early 1980s India had a large and growing pool of engineering and science graduates, but very few of them started technology businesses. Most aimed for government jobs or large public-sector companies. To change this, the Department of Science & Technology set up the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB) in 1982. The Science and Technology Entrepreneurs Park (STEP) programme, one of its first institutional programmes, followed in 1984.

NSTEDB’s description of the programme gives four aims:

• linking universities, academic and R&D institutions with industry;
• encouraging science and technology graduates to create jobs rather than look for them;
• using research institutions to give R&D support to small-scale industry;
• promoting enterprises built on innovation.

The design had two notable features. First, every STEP had to be “promoted around a host institution which could launch, sustain and help the STEP grow”. The park was meant to draw on a college’s laboratories, faculty and students. Second, each STEP was registered as an autonomous society, separate from the host college. That gave it room to work with banks, government agencies and industry in ways a teaching institution could not.

Early STEPs were deliberately hardware-intensive. NSTEDB lists nursery sheds (small factory units for start-ups), testing and calibration, a precision tool room or central workshop, prototype development, computing, a data bank, a library and a seminar hall. Fledgling manufacturers could rent space and share expensive equipment. That fitted an era when most technology ventures made physical products.

The results were mixed. NSTEDB says the department “catalysed 15 STEPs in different parts of the country”, which together promoted hundreds of units. Academic work on Indian incubation is more critical: one study notes that of the STEPs set up between 1984 and 1995, only a minority showed results or financial sustainability by 2001. That gap is part of why the next generation of incubators was designed differently.

SJCE-STEP’s origins on the Mysuru campus

The archived 2014 SJCE website is one of the best records of how the park described itself. That page says SJCE-STEP was established in 1988 on the SJCE campus with support from:

• the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India;
• the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI);
• the Department of Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka;
• the Department of Industries & Commerce, Government of Karnataka.

The same page calls it one of the first three STEPs accredited as the best among the 14 established nationally. It also recorded several international links. UNESCO chose SJCE-STEP as a nodal centre for a seminar on entrepreneurial engineering design and product development facilities in technical institutions, attended by 11 South-East Asian countries. The park’s director advised Universiti Teknologi Malaysia on a similar initiative. And SJCE-STEP was described as the base of the Indian STEP Association, which networked STEPs in India with science parks abroad.

The archive also shows that SJCE-STEP did much more than house start-ups. Working with the college, it ran continuing education courses for working professionals in maintenance management, quality management, press working and construction management. Through the STEP and the community polytechnic, it also ran community programmes under a mass employment scheme, such as training in hand-pump maintenance and fuel-efficient ASTRA chulas for rural areas. The JSS technical education page from the same archive described SJCE-STEP as rendering “services in the areas of Entrepreneurship, Skill Development, Consultancy and Continuing Education Programmes”.

For the wider story of the campus, see our history page and the long-form history of SJCE from 1963 to JSS STU. The SJCE-STEP page on this site collects the archived material.

From STEPs to TBIs and NIDHI: how Indian incubation evolved

To understand an incubator like SJCE-STEP today, you need to know how the policy around it changed. In short: support moved from sheds and shared machines towards mentoring, seed money and links to investors.

Period	Programme	Main idea
1982	NSTEDB set up under DST	A national body to promote knowledge-driven, technology-intensive enterprises
1984 onwards	Science & Technology Entrepreneurs Parks (STEPs)	Hardware-heavy parks around host institutions: nursery sheds, testing, tool rooms, training
2001 onwards	Technology Business Incubators (TBIs)	Leaner incubators focused on early-stage tech start-ups, built on lessons from STEPs
2016 onwards	NIDHI (National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations)	Support across the whole journey from idea to prototype, seed funding and acceleration
2022–2027	Karnataka Startup Policy (state level)	State support for incubators beyond Bengaluru. JSS STU’s TBI 2.0 recognition falls under it

NIDHI matters most to a student founder, because its parts line up with the stages of building a company:

• NIDHI-PRAYAS: support to turn an idea into a working prototype, with mentoring and money at proof-of-concept stage.
• NIDHI Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIR): fellowships for graduates who want to try entrepreneurship instead of taking a job straight away.
• NIDHI Seed Support: early-stage seed funding routed through incubators.
• NIDHI Accelerator: short, intensive programmes to get start-ups ready for investment.
• TBIs and Centres of Excellence: the incubation infrastructure itself.

SJCE-STEP’s website has a NIDHI-PRAYAS page, and DST’s directories have listed it as a PRAYAS centre and a technology business incubator. Scheme rounds and host lists change, so before you plan around any of these schemes, confirm which one is open at SJCE-STEP right now.

What SJCE-STEP says it offers today

SJCE-STEP’s website now presents it as the incubator and accelerator of JSS Science and Technology University. The site describes:

• Incubation cohorts with an application window and a fixed start date. The admission criteria it lists are a technology or scientific innovation at the core, at least two co-founders, and a validated problem statement.
• A staged pathway: online application and screening, panel evaluation, incubation and building a minimum viable product (MVP), then scaling.
• Shared infrastructure: workspace, meeting rooms, prototyping labs and computing resources.
• Funding links: seed support and introductions to government seed schemes, angel networks and venture funds.
• Mentoring and events: demo days, accelerator cohorts and a skills (upskilling) portal.

Reports from 2025 add that JSS STU was recognised as a Technology Business Incubator 2.0 under Karnataka’s Startup Policy 2022–2027, with ₹10 crore over five years. The same reports mention a planned JSS Innovation & Research Park for R&D, testing and prototyping in areas such as AI and semiconductors. Treat timelines in news reports as plans until they are confirmed officially.

Some headline numbers on the SJCE-STEP website (start-ups supported, capital deployed, mentors) are not consistent from one section of the site to another. We have left them out. If those numbers matter to your decision, ask the incubator for current, documented figures.

Incubators, E-Cells, accelerators: which is which?

Students often use “incubator” for any start-up programme. The differences affect what you can expect:

Type	Typical stage	What you usually get	What it usually expects
College E-Cell / innovation council	Idea, student team	Workshops, hackathons, peer network, small competitions	Enthusiasm; no company needed
Pre-incubation / prototyping grant (e.g. PRAYAS-type)	Idea to prototype	Lab access, mentor, limited grant tied to milestones	A clear technical problem and a build plan
Incubator (STEP / TBI)	Prototype to early customers	Space, mentoring, compliance help, seed-fund access, investor introductions	Usually a registered entity, committed founders, sometimes equity or fees
Accelerator	Early revenue	Short intensive programme, demo day, investor network	Traction and readiness to raise money

How a student founder can realistically use an incubator

Most engineering students are not ready to join an incubation cohort in their second year, and that is fine. A sensible path looks like this:

1. Find a real problem first. Talk to at least a dozen potential users, such as farmers, small manufacturers, clinic staff or shop owners, before you write code or order parts. Incubators ask for a “validated problem statement” for a reason.
2. Build a rough prototype in college. Use department labs, final-year project time and low-cost hardware. An Arduino or ESP32 prototype that solves one problem is worth more than a slide deck. If you need a structured start, our IoT engineering project kit is one option. Your college lab and free online material work just as well.
3. Use the AICTE internship rules to your advantage. AICTE’s internship policy lets students count innovation, IPR and entrepreneurship work, such as building a product or registering a start-up, towards their internship requirement. Check how your institution applies this before you plan around it.
4. Form a balanced team. Many incubators want at least two co-founders. Combine technical depth with someone who can sell and handle money.
5. Apply for prototyping support before seed money. Grants such as PRAYAS fit an idea that still needs to be proved. Seed funds expect a working product and early users.
6. Read the incubation agreement carefully. Check fees, any equity the incubator takes, IP ownership (especially where university labs or faculty were involved), and exit terms.
7. Keep your degree on track. Arrears and attendance shortfalls cause far more trouble than a failed start-up. Most successful student founders treat the venture as a side project until it clearly works.

What incubation panels typically look for

Each incubator has its own criteria, but panels at STEPs and TBIs tend to ask similar questions:

• Technology core: is there real engineering or science that is hard to copy, or is it a trading or service business that does not need an incubator?
• Problem evidence: customer interviews, pilot users, letters of intent or early sales.
• Team commitment: who works on it full time, and who is still a student with exams in May?
• Feasibility of the next milestone: can the team reach a working prototype or first customer in six to twelve months with the help offered?
• IP and compliance: is ownership clear, is the company registered, and are there regulatory hurdles (medical devices, drones, food)?

Why SJCE-STEP still matters

SJCE-STEP’s story is useful for more than nostalgia. It shows three lasting ideas in Indian technical education. A college campus can host a business ecosystem, not only classrooms. Continuing education and community training can sit alongside start-up support. And a tier-2 city like Mysuru can build its own innovation base instead of sending every founder to Bengaluru.

For students and parents choosing a college, the lesson is practical. An active incubator on or near campus increases the chances of entrepreneurship mentoring, real-world projects and contacts with industry, so ask about it at counselling. Our articles on industry–institute partnerships and the research page cover the related routes from classroom to industry.

Frequently asked questions

Sources & further reading

• SJCE-STEP official website: current incubation programmes and contacts
• NSTEDB: Science & Technology Entrepreneurs Park programme
• India Science & Technology portal: STEP scheme overview
• Strengthening STI-based incubators in India (arXiv paper with STEP/TBI timeline)
• Overview of DST’s NIDHI programme and its components
• Report: JSS STU receives TBI 2.0 recognition (2025)
• JSS Mahavidyapeetha: SJCE-STEP, Mysore
• AICTE Internship Policy (PDF)