The country’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki on Monday launched a program – Mobility & Automobile Innovation Lab (MAIL) to tap into the start up world and promote innovation in India for automobile and mobility space.
It is an initiative by Maruti Suzuki to identify innovative and cutting edge solutions through start-ups, which are futuristic and customer oriented. The program will provide a platform to the budding talent in India to showcase their entrepreneurial capabilities at a national level. Startups with innovations in these fields would be offered an opportunity by Maruti Suzuki to turn their ideas into reality, the company said in a statement.
For this initiative Maruti Suzuki has partneredwith GHV Accelerator (www.ghvaccelerator.com), an Indo-Japanese early-stage seed fund with proprietary accelerator program and industry co-creation program.
The Indian automobile industry is currently undergoing a transformation and requires unique solutions in the mobility and automobile space believes Maruti Suzuki and it felt in recent times have seen a boom in the startup culture in India – a culture popular for its fast paced execution, agile organization and out-of-the-box approach towards problem solving.
Speaking about the initiative, Kenichi Ayukawa, Managing Director & CEO, Maruti Suzuki India said the Indian Automobile industry is constantly evolving. The need of the hour is to have a relentless approach towards promoting a culture of innovation.
Also read: Suzuki to commission 3rd plant at Gujarat by 2020
This initiative will help Maruti Suzuki leverage the innovation capability of startups to provide unique solutions in the mobility and automobile space.
“Through MAIL, Maruti Suzuki offers a platform for startups to showcase their capabilities and come up with next generation ideas in the areas of Connected cars / Shared mobility / Autonomous cars / Electric vehicle and its Infrastructure etc. Select few startups would get an opportunity to do a Proof of Concept (Pilot) with Maruti Suzuki,” added Ayukawa.