Start-ups need support from ideation stage to drive energy transition: panellists

Start-ups working on sustainability solutions need to be supported from the ideation stage to help innovative ideas translate into viable technologies, panellists said at The Hindu Sustainability Summit 2026 held in Chennai on Wednesday (September 23, 2026).

At a session on ‘Ideas to Impact: Start-ups accelerating the energy transition’, speakers discussed about the current status of start-ups, challenges they face and the support needed to scale their innovations.

Elaborating on the importance of incubation and entrepreneurial activities, Indumathi M. Nambi, Environment and Water Resources Division, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras, said not many incubators supported students at ideation stage and many students too did not register with incubators. This indicated a gap in the existing incubation eco system. There was a need to create pre-incubators that could help students develop and test their ideas.