Inauguration of Bank of Baroda IIT Bombay Innovation Centre

The Bank of Baroda IIT Bombay Innovation Centre (BOB IIT B IC) was inaugurated by Mr Sanjiv Chadha, MD & CEO, Bank of Baroda and Prof Subhasis Chaudhuri, Director, IIT Bombay in the presence of Mr P. S. Jayakumar, Ex MD & CEO, Bank of Baroda, Padma Shri Mohandas Pai, Padma Shri Deepak Pathak and top management of Bank of Baroda during the Entrepreneurship Summit, 2020.

Located within IIT Bombay campus in Powai, the center is first of its kind initiative with industry-academia partnership focused on FINTECH between a leading BFSI organization and a Technology Institute of Eminence. The objective of the center is to evaluate and adopt emerging technologies, develop a culture of Innovation, foster innovations in the financial hardware space and contribute to bank’s digital strategy. The center is expected to be the fountainhead of Innovation for the entire Bank of Baroda group including Capital Markets, Asset Management, Insurance, Shared Services etc.

Mr Sanjiv Chadha, MD & CEO, Bank of Baroda said, “It gives me great pleasure to inaugurate the Bank of Baroda-IIT Bombay Innovation Centre, which will focus on financial technology. I believe that this is timed well, given the growing need to innovate and ideate within the banking universe. We look forward to the emergence of great ideas that can be weaved into the Bank of Baroda system of excellence and technology.”

Prof Subhasis Chaudhuri, Director, IIT Bombay said, “We at IIT Bombay are delighted to enter into this partnership with Bank of Baroda. We look forward to 100 innovations emerge from this Innovation Centre. The partnership with Bank of Baroda will help our students in translating their ideas and innovations in the real world, allowing them the required exposure to build and create a better India.”

Salient features of the Innovation Centre include:

• Centre to act as an innovation fountainhead, inducing inventive solutions to the software and hardware challenges faced by the banking industry as a whole.
• Establishment of ‘100 Ideas Programme’ at the centre to support creation of 100 start-ups/ R&D projects over a period of five years. The ‘100 Ideas programme is divided into Pre-Incubation, Incubation, Acceleration and R & D projects.
• Focus areas include FinTech, Open Banking (Sandbox), AR/VR, Robotics, IoT, Rural Economy, SocialTech, GovTech, Digital Lending, Payments, Cyber Security, Robo – Advisory, Big Data, AI/NLP/ML/Data Science, Block chain, Cloud computing and Next Gen financial Hardware Devices.
• Establishment of -2-‘Chair Professorship’ positions at IIT Bombay in the domains of ‘Digital Entrepreneurship’ and ‘IT Innovation’, supporting the centre.

Facilities at the Centre:

• Access to funding for 100 start-ups/ R & D projects over a period of five years
• Access to use case repository for Fintech space
• Dedicated working space
• Mentorship from Fintech industry experts
• Support and connections with exclusive access to domain expertise & reach of the bank and its subsidiaries in Insurance, Capital Markets, Global Shared Services etc.
• Banking Facilities under Baroda Startup Banking Program
• Access to ecosystem partners such as government bodies, think tanks, software and hardware technology companies
• Physical Infrastructure including Computers, Dedicated Internet Connection etc.