OREANDA-NEWS. December 9, 2011. As part of its ongoing initiative to encourage innovation in India, Tata Communications announces its support of iAccelerator, a start-up incubation programme that provides Indian technology entrepreneurs access to mentoring, infrastructure and investment support to kick start their businesses. iAccelerator is the flagship programme of the Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM Ahmedabad. Since its inception in 2009, the programme has helped launch 17 successful start-ups in the internet / mobile domain.

Tata Communications’ senior executives will mentor the entrepreneurs to launch their ideas. In addition, iAccelerator participants will also have access to the company’s leading cloud, connectivity and collaboration tools* necessary to succeed in a global business community.

Nine start-ups have been selected for this year’s programme and have already been provided with working space, IT infrastructure, seed capital and mentoring from a team of industry experts in order to showcase their final prototype / product in front of angel investors at the end of January 2012.

Pranay Gupta, joint CEO, CIIE, says, “In today’s globally connected environment it was important to support our finalists with reliable and sophisticated cloud, global connectivity and collaboration tools which is why there was no question in our mind that Tata Communications should be part of the iAccelerator programme this year. We are looking forward to seeing how the start-ups make use of their access to this world-class infrastructure to further their businesses and achieve economies of scale.”

Srinivasa Addepalli, senior vice president, corporate strategy, Tata Communications, says, “Investing  in talent and our communities  is a core pillar of our business philosophy. The importance role that start-ups play in driving economic regeneration and innovation is unquestionable. Tata Communications is excited to work with these rising stars to help them reach their full potential.”

* Tata Communications’ iAccelerator 2011 cloud, connectivity and collaboration technology support:

Cloud: Tata Communications’ InstaCompute is a pay-per-use cloud computing solution that leverages the company’s data centres and tier-1 IP network providing start-ups with scalable and flexible access to processing power, bandwidth and storage. To learn more about InstaCompute please visit: http://iaas.tatacommunications.com/

Connectivity: Tata Communications provides cost-effective and dedicated 24x7 connectivity with provisions for expandable bandwidth. The start-ups will be connected to the global network (or world) through international leased lines and next-generation ethernet services delivered over the Tata Global Network, which includes one of the most advanced and largest submarine cable networks, a Tier-1 IP network, with connectivity to more than 200 countries across 400 PoPs, and nearly 1 million square feet of data centre and collocation space worldwide.

Collaboration: Tata Communications offers world-class collaboration solutions across audio, video and web platforms. Tata Communications has the largest network of public telepresence rooms in the world, with over 36 public telepresence conference locations across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and North America. Telepresence, the next generation video conferencing technology, provides a high-definition environment enabling companies to emulate a face-to-face meeting regardless of where they are located in the world.