New Product Ideation

Write down the idea. Get back a working prototype.

You do not need a specification, a technical brief or an engineering vocabulary. You need to describe the problem honestly and say what success would look like. A student team does the rest, over one semester, with faculty supervision.

A brief, not a spec
14 weeks
You choose the IP terms

The Product Idea Brief

Eight lines. That is the whole submission.

Deliberately not a specification. A specification is what you get at the end, not what you provide at the start — and demanding one is exactly what has excluded MSMEs from structured innovation until now.

An example brief

Prompt	What one MSME wrote
Sector	Agricultural equipment
The idea in one line	A low-cost soil moisture sensor that alerts farmers by SMS when irrigation is needed
Where we are today	We sell manual probes. Farmers want automation but cannot afford a ₹15,000 IoT sensor.
Target price point	Under ₹2,500 for the device
Constraints	Must work without WiFi — SMS or GSM only
What success looks like	A working prototype we can show our dealer network for feedback
IP preference	Institution owns it; we get a usage licence
What we offer the team	₹5,000 stipend each, a letter of recommendation, and an internship offer for the strongest performer

Why the brief is deliberately loose

A tight specification tells a student team what to build. A loose brief with hard constraints — a price ceiling, no WiFi, a real user — tells them what problem to solve, and leaves the interesting part to them. That is what produces something you would not have thought of.

It is also what makes the work count at the highest cognitive level academically — which is why strong teams compete for these briefs.

Choosing the team

Teams of two to four students, cross-disciplinary encouraged
Each team submits a short proposal — their composition, their approach direction, and the faculty supervisor they have secured
You review the proposals and pick one. Not the platform — you
The institution's admin approves the match before work begins

The fourteen weeks

Two video calls a month from you. That is the whole time commitment.

Weeks 1–2 — Requirement clarification
The team asks you the questions you did not know needed answering. NDA signed. Scope confirmed.
Weeks 3–6 — Concept and design
Faculty checkpoints, not yours. The team explores approaches and converges on one.
Weeks 7–10 — Prototyping
You provide domain input through two video calls a month. This is where your knowledge of the real user matters most.
Weeks 11–13 — Testing and refinement
The prototype meets reality. Constraints get tested against the price ceiling you set.
Week 14 — Final presentation
Presented to you and submitted on the platform. You publish feedback publicly, which becomes part of the team's portfolio.

Who owns what

Four standard models. You pick one before anyone starts.

Ambiguity about ownership is what kills industry-academia projects. Udgam removes it by making the choice explicit at listing time, using templates reviewed by IP counsel.

Model	Who owns the IP	What the other side gets
Joint (50/50)	A joint patent, both parties named	Either party can commercialise independently, with a revenue share
Company-led	You own the IP outright	The institution receives a lump-sum payment and citation rights
Institution-led	The institution owns it	You get a five-year exclusive usage licence
Startup spin-off	The student team forms a company	You invest; the institution takes an equity stake

For most MSMEs, institution-led is the right choice: you get a usage licence at the price point you needed, without paying for ownership of something you have no intention of licensing to anyone else.

What happens afterwards

The prototype is the beginning, not the deliverable.

You commercialise it

If the product goes to market, the students receive a one-time bonus as set out in the IP agreement. Nothing is left to goodwill.

The team becomes your pipeline

You have spent fourteen weeks watching four students solve your actual problem. That is a hiring signal no interview produces. Most MSMEs make an offer to at least one.

The project becomes visible

Strong projects are featured in the Innovation Portfolio, visible to every company on the platform, and can be nominated for national innovation awards.

14 wks

fixed, semester-aligned. It does not drift, because the academic calendar does not drift

2–4

students per team, cross-disciplinary teams encouraged for product work

₹30,000

typical total cost, against ₹5–15 lakh for the agency equivalent

When a million engineering students a year are solving real manufacturing problems as semester projects — not textbook exercises — India stops being an assembler and starts being an inventor.

Udgam Vision 2047 — the manufacturing renaissance

Innovative Projects
Real business problems. Real student teams. Real outcomes.
Viksit Bharat
Every student placed is one more proof that $30 trillion is possible.
10X Faster
Accreditation in a click. Projects in a semester. Placements in a season.

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What is the idea you have never had time to build?

Write it down in eight lines. A student team will take it from there.