National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations (NIDHI) is an umbrella programme conceived and developed by the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Division (NSTEDB) of DST, Government of India in 2016, for promoting S&T based entrepreneurship and startup ecosystem across the country.

• The programme works in line with the national priorities and goals and its focus is to build an innovation driven entrepreneurial ecosystem with an objective of national development through wealth and job creation. NIDHI aims to nurture start-ups through scouting, supporting and scaling of innovations. NIDHI is developed keeping in line the new national aspirations and on the basis of DST’s experience of three decades, in promoting innovative start-ups.

The key components of NIDHI are

1. NIDHI-GCC – Grand Challenges and Competitions for scouting innovations;

2. NIDHI- PRomotion and Acceleration of Young and Aspiring technology entrepreneurs (NIDHI-PRAYAS) – Support from Idea to Prototype;

3. NIDHI- Entrepreneur In Residence (NIDHI-EIR) – Support system to reduce risk;

4. Startup-NIDHI through Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Centres (IEDCs) in academic institutions; encouraging Students to promote start-ups;

5. Start-up Centre in collaboration with MHRD; Inculcating a spirit of entrepreneurship in National Institutions of Higher Learning;

6. NIDHI-Technology Business Incubator (TBI) – Converting Innovations to startups;

7. NIDHI-Accelerator – Fast tracking a start-up through focused intervention;

8. NIDHI-Seed Support System (NIDHI-SSS)- Providing early stage investment;

9. NIDHI Centres of Excellence (NIDHI-CoE) – A World class facility to help startups go global.