For MSMEs
Your product idea. A student team. Done in a semester.
India has 63 million MSMEs. Almost none of them have a research and development function — not because the ideas are missing, but because the people to build them were never reachable. Udgam makes them reachable.
- Projects from ₹30,000
- University labs bookable
- Faculty consulting available
The honest position
You are the backbone of the economy and the orphan of innovation.
The idea exists. The build doesn't.
Most MSME owners can describe precisely what their customers need next. What they cannot do is hire an engineering team for one project, or pay an agency five to fifteen lakh to find out whether it works.
The equipment is unaffordable
A test rig you would use four times a year cannot be justified as a capital purchase. So the test does not happen, and the product ships without it — or does not ship at all.
The expertise is unreachable
There is a professor forty minutes away who has spent twenty years on exactly your problem. There has never been a way for you to find them, hire them for six weeks, and pay them properly.
What you can do here
Five things, all priced for a business your size.
Post a project or an internship
From ₹500 for a micro-internship listing. Matched students apply, ranked by how well their verified capability fits your work — not by who saw the post first.
Read moreBook a university lab
Testing rigs, fabrication facilities, specialist instrumentation. Booked by the hour or the day, with a technician included, in the evenings and at weekends when they would otherwise sit idle.
Read moreHire a faculty consultant
Post a requirement in plain language. Faculty with genuine depth respond with a scope and a rate. Standard agreements, milestone escrow, and a rating afterwards.
Read moreTurn an idea into a prototype
Write down a raw concept — not a specification. A student team takes it as a semester project and hands you something working at the end of fourteen weeks.
Read moreOffer learning instead of a stipend
If you genuinely cannot pay, the Skill-Credit Exchange lets you offer structured, faculty-supervised learning exposure that earns the student academic credit instead. Free to list.
Read moreWhat it costs
The whole argument, in one table.
What it costs today
What it costs here
Before —Prototype from an engineering agency: ₹5–15 lakh, three to six months
After —Student project: ₹30,000, one semester, faculty-supervised
Before —Domain research from a consultancy: ₹3–8 lakh
After —Faculty consulting: ₹40,000–₹80,000 for a six-week engagement
Before —Test equipment: a capital purchase you cannot justify
After —University lab booking: hourly or daily, technician included
Before —Hiring a graduate: a job portal listing and a hopeful guess
After —An intern whose capability you watched for fourteen weeks first
Before —No stipend budget means no talent
After —Skill-Credit Exchange: free to list, credit-bearing for the student
lowest listing fee — a micro-internship of two to eight weeks
typical semester project fee, for a supervised student team and a working deliverable
to list under the Skill-Credit Exchange when you cannot offer a stipend
review time before your listing goes live to matched students
Registering
One number is all we need.
- Your Udyam Registration Number — verified automatically against the MSME Ministry registry within 24 hours
- Trading name, sector, district and state, employee count and turnover band
- GST number, optional but it improves your trust score
- A short description of your work — 150 words is enough
- Simplified onboarding in your regional language
- A WhatsApp-based onboarding helpline, not an email ticket queue
- An onboarding buddy from the existing MSME community for your first 30 days
- Priority listing in regional student feeds for your first three months
Reputation
The more you contribute, the more talent chooses you.
| Badge | Engagements | Rating required | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze | 1–3 verified | — | A public contributor page and active listings |
| Silver | 4–10 verified | 3.5 and above | Higher ranking in student discovery feeds |
| Gold | 11–25 | 4.0 and above | Featured placement in regional feeds |
| Champion | 26 or more | 4.2 and above | Institution-endorsed partner status and university brand pages |
Ratings work both ways and are released only after both sides submit, so neither party can rate strategically. Your rating of the student feeds their profile; theirs feeds your contributor score.
What protects both sides
Every listing is read by a person before it goes live.
Manual review
Not an algorithm. The Udgam team checks legitimacy, completeness, honest claims, and that requirements are non-discriminatory — within 24 to 48 hours.
A real learning test
For unpaid Skill-Credit listings, the team verifies the work genuinely develops skills. Unpaid labour with no learning is rejected.
Faculty supervision
Every credit-bearing engagement has a named faculty supervisor at the student's institution, throughout — not just at the end.
Standard agreements
Internship agreements, learning plans and IP declarations come from templates. Nothing waits on a lawyer neither side has.
India’s MSMEs collectively employ 110 million people. When MSMEs innovate, they grow. When they grow, they hire. When they hire at scale, the unemployment problem begins to reverse.
Innovative Projects
Real business problems. Real student teams. Real outcomes.
Internships
Structured, CO-linked, credit-bearing — not informal and forgotten.
Viksit Bharat
Every student placed is one more proof that $30 trillion is possible.
For MSMEs
The things people actually ask.
What does it actually cost to get a student team working on my problem?
Registration is free, and listings start at a few hundred rupees. A full semester project costs a small fraction of what an engineering agency charges for the same prototype — the fee goes to the institution, and most of it reaches the student team and their supervising faculty member directly. We quote the exact figure against your brief.
I don't have a stipend budget. Am I excluded?
No. The Skill-Credit Exchange lets you offer structured, faculty-supervised learning exposure instead of money, and the student earns academic credit for it. It is free to list. The one condition is that the work has to genuinely develop skills — our review team reads unpaid listings specifically to check that, and rejects the ones that are just unpaid labour.
I don't have a technical specification. I just have an idea.
That is the right starting point. The Product Idea Brief is deliberately eight lines — the idea, where you are today, your price ceiling, your hard constraints, and what success would look like. Working out what to build is the student team's job, and it is what makes the work count at the highest academic level, which is why good teams compete for these briefs.
What happens to the intellectual property?
You choose one of four standard models before any work begins, and it is stated on the listing. Most MSMEs pick institution-led: the institution owns it and you get a five-year exclusive usage licence, which gets you the product at your price point without paying for ownership you have no use for. The templates have been reviewed by IP counsel.
How much of my time does this take?
For a semester project, roughly two video calls a month during the build phase, plus a mid-point and a final rubric of about fifteen minutes each. Those two rubrics matter — they are what converts the engagement into academic credit for the student, and engagements where they lapse show up on your public contributor score.
Can I use a university lab without a formal partnership?
Yes. Labs are listed with their equipment, availability windows and hourly or daily rates. You book through the platform, the institution's admin confirms, and a technician is included in the rate. The institution keeps 85% of the fee, which is why the listings are real and maintained.
MSMEs
Keep exploring
- Post Projects & InternshipsMatched student talent from ₹500 a listing.Read
- Access University Labs & InfraBook equipment you could never justify owning.Read
- Faculty Consulting MarketplaceHire a PhD for six weeks, not six figures.Read
- New Product Ideation ProgrammeA raw idea in. A working prototype out.Read
- Skill-Credit ExchangeNo stipend budget? Offer verified learning instead.Read
Free to register
Register with your Udyam number.
No payment to join. No payment until you post a listing — and nothing at all if you list under the Skill-Credit Exchange.