ICEM Pune Hosts Entrepreneurship Awareness Programme- MSME Hackathon 5.0 Winners Receive Rs 66.5 Lakhs Funding
Pune, 09 April 2026: The Indira College of Engineering and Management (ICEM) here organised an Entrepreneurship Awareness Programme, during which winners of the MSME Idea Hackathon 5.0 were awarded funding totalling Rs 66.5 lakh.
Abhay Dapatradar, Assistant Director (Grade 1) and Cluster Development Officer, Ministry of MSME, Government of India, attended the event as the chief guest. He was felicitated by ICEM principal Nilesh Uke.
Addressing students, Dapatradar urged them to become job creators rather than job seekers, stressing the importance of innovation, passion and problem-solving in building successful ventures. He encouraged aspiring entrepreneurs to leverage the SBI startup ecosystem, particularly the MSME UDAAN loan scheme, for DPIIT-registered startups.
He also highlighted India’s rise to the 39th position in the Global Innovation Index 2024 and referred to China’s “dark factories” as a wake-up call for Indian industry to accelerate adoption of automation and robotics.
During the programme, five incubatees received funding under the MSME Idea Hackathon 5.0. Deep Dinesh Biswas from ICEM’s Artificial Intelligence and Data Science department was awarded Rs 10 lakh, while Adhiraj Jagtap from Anantharao Pawar College, Pune, received Rs 14.5 lakh. Garima Kushwaha and Joshna Lowrence Monteiro, both from ICEM, were granted Rs 15 lakh each, and Samruddhi Santosh Morde from ICEM received Rs 12 lakh.
With this, the institute’s cumulative MSME incubation funding has crossed Rs 1 crore, officials said.
Dapatradar advised the awardees to focus on developing functional prototypes and scaling their ideas into viable businesses, underlining the need for discipline, continuous learning and purposeful use of technology.
The session also drew inspiration from Arunima Sinha, the first female amputee to climb Mount Everest, whose journey of resilience was cited as a motivating example for students.
He appreciated Tarita Shankar, Chairperson and Chief Mentor of Indira Group of Institutes, for her leadership, and acknowledged the contributions of Poorna Shankar and Archana Salve in organising the programme.
The event concluded with a vote of thanks by the ICEM team.
