Last week, deep-tech and public health took centre stage at IIT Delhi as Blockchain For Impact (BFI) and the Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT) launched a platform for AI healthtech startups. By bringing together clinicians, ecosystem leaders, and over 15 potential investors, the event aimed to develop healthcare solutions designed for India.
“We aim to accelerate the deployment of AI-driven solutions that can extract faster insights from massive datasets, helping innovations move from the laboratory to the field,” Tarun Chaturvedi, chief operating officer of FITT, told FE. “FITT functions as the bridge between academic excellence and real-world impact.”
Under his leadership since 2025, FITT has evolved from a traditional support function into a growth engine. “While IIT Delhi generates cutting-edge research, our mandate is to translate these assets into deployable technologies and investable ventures,” Chaturvedi said, who has spearheaded a move from a transactional incubation model to a structured venture-building framework.
Addressing the challenges of deep-tech in India, Chaturvedi said that innovation cannot scale in isolation. FITT has repositioned industry partners as co-creators rather than late-stage customers. “Breakthrough technologies often fail not due to technical gaps, but due to missing adoption pathways,” he said.
Global Gateway
The impact of this vision is extending beyond India. The recently established IIT Delhi-Abu Dhabi campus is poised to become a binational innovation gateway. Chaturvedi highlighted the announcement of India’s first Global Atal Incubation Centre (Global AIC) outside the country, to be set up at the Abu Dhabi campus in collaboration with the NITI Aayog. “This will create a cross-border market linkage, allowing startups to leverage international academic expertise and industry partnerships,” he said.
Chaturvedi is also applying lessons from his tenure at IIT Kanpur to build niche dominance in critical sectors. “At IIT Delhi, the focus is on centres of excellence in areas like cybersecurity, semiconductors, and climate tech. In cybersecurity, IIT Delhi is building end-to-end capability stacks that integrate IP, talent, and market access into a single hub-and-spoke model,” he said.
Inclusive Innovation
Chaturvedi added that he is also committed to ensuring that the innovation boom is inclusive. FITT has embedded equity into its design, focusing on targeted outreach for founders from tier-2 and tier-3 cities. “Supporting underrepresented founders is not philanthropy; it is portfolio diversification,” he said. “These founders often work on high-impact problems with deep local relevance.”
As AI continues to redefine healthcare, the synergy between institutions like FITT, global partners like the UAE, and the investment community ensures that India’s innovation story can deliver scalable impact.
