Hexagon’s startup catalyst programme helping Indian AI, autonomous tech startups go global

Nasdaq-listed Euro 5.2 billion Hexagon is a global leader in digital reality solutions, combining sensor, software and autonomous technologies. It puts data to work to boost efficiency, productivity, quality and safety across industrial, manufacturing, infrastructure, public sector, and mobility applications. Hexagon’s R&D Center in India, set up following Hexagon’s acquisition of Intergraph, one of the first tech MNCs in Hyderabad, is the single largest R&D hub for the company globally. Over 2000 talented engineers and developers create innovation from this center that serves global customers. This center has now grown to deliver innovation and create solutions for different business lines in Hexagon, especially in areas of asset lifecycle intelligence, safety infrastructure, geospatial, geosystems, mining, manufacturing intelligence and autonomy. The company has now come up with what it calls ‘Startup Catalyst Programme’ to help Indian startups in joint global market penetration.

Speaking to Bizz Buzz exclusively, Navaneet Mishra, Senior Vice President & Head of Hexagon’s R&D Center India, explains in greater details what are they planning to do with this initiative, how are they going to do this, why have they invested in this and how is the Indian startup ecosystem going to benefit from this

Why does this program matter to Indian startups?

Hexagon’s Startups Catalyst Program is an opportunity for Indian startups to utilize their knowhow and skills in Digital Reality and Autonomous Technologies areas, and achieve joint global market penetration with Hexagon.

What Hexagon is offering is no generic innovation promise, but a highly specific one with a direct path to market. The problems we have offered to startups are well-defined ones, and either existing or emerging.

Indian startups will benefit in three ways - first in getting to know exactly where to apply their capabilities to, second in getting the chance to work with global experts from Hexagon and on Hexagon’s cutting-edge technologies and platforms to co-develop market-ready solutions, and third in finding a path to customer-attention across geographies.

Hexagon is the global leader in digital reality and autonomous solutions and our technology finds use in some of the largest enterprises, in governments and defense, in manufacturing and process plants, in building smart cities and critical infrastructure, in automotives, ship building, mining, agriculture, protecting heritage monuments amongst others. We can offer Indian startups an unbeatable advantage in broadening their exposure, enriching their experience and connecting them to a huge ecosystem.

Why has Hexagon invested in this?

We believe that innovation comes from everywhere - from students in campuses, to communities that embrace technology, to startups who are high on passion and curious to find new ways to solve problems or generate opportunities.

In India, we see immense drive, energy and passion in technology startups. We know the potential this has, to break new boundaries in the areas we are interested in. Further we do understand that Indian startups working in specific niches often find it challenging to be discovered by global players and to break the barriers to reach geographies where their solutions might have a more ‘ready market’.

Our commitment to the ecosystem is to help them with the unique advantage that we, with our cutting-edge technologies and platforms, recognized experts and global footprint, can offer them. By helping them co-solution and go-to-market together. This is our vision of how the corporate-startup collaborations can truly work and lead to stronger and focused innovations.

What are the other things Hexagon is doing with Startups and Academia around the areas of Digital Reality, Industry 4.0 and so on...

Our Geospatial Accelerator Zone at T-Hub facilitates startups to gain free access to the most futuristic hardware and software solutions. Startups would find it difficult to access these technologies because of the kind of investments it calls for. Today more than 10 startups have benefited from the technologies we opened up to them, and the help they get from our R&D subject matter experts. They have created proof-of-concepts, taking them closer to solutioning and market-readiness in the digital reality space.

Hexagon’s R&D center was the first in India to open a community outreach program to bring Artificial Intelligence and Robotics closer to senior school and college students. A physical modern institute space with free education program, is bringing industry practitioners and real-life project experience to the students community - while also offering a certification in AI, based on successful course completion. It takes AI closer to students early on, so that they embrace emerging technologies and apply them to EV manufacturing, digital reality, industry 4.0 solutions - and many more verticals. Today more than 6000 students are on board from 40 colleagues and schools and over 3700 have been certified in AI.

We are also very hands-on in our engagement with academia, such as engaging with universities on specific problem statements and solving them. For example, with a professor and 4 students, under the mentorship of our industry experts, we solved a real-world problem in a span of a quarter. A patent is now underway and the solution found a way to our standard product offering in process plants digital reality space. We are now engaging in another such problem in the Industry 4.0 area with another mentor and another set of students and a professor and hope to achieve innovation in similar timelines.

So much is done on the software front on Indian tech, what happens to startups working on the hardware-software intersection? How is Hexagon helping them?

Given our focus on Digital Reality and Autonomous Solutions, Hexagon is deeply invested in driving and enabling innovation in technologies that overlap the hardware-software intersection. Which is why we have invested in programs that help students and communities embrace artificial intelligence and robotics, as well as offer startups direct access to futuristic geospatial solutions.

We also invest in helping hardware engineers gain more practical, hands-on experience, and get to work on real-life problems. For example, we set up a Precision Metrology Lab at IIT Hyderabad’s Technology Incubation Center (iTIC) that offers students and startups the opportunity to gain real-life experience, explore ideas and conduct experiments with world-class technologies that Hexagon has developed over the years.

Engineers need smart ways to test ideas, prototype faster, and do better inspection. With this lab, we power their passion with our technology and expertise. When more engineers gain easy access to cutting-edge technologies, devices and methodologies, they will build products that are faster to market and world-class in quality. We believe that this lab and what it enables, will help the hardware and OEM ecosystem in India in a big way.

What is the projected growth path in India? Where would they take the head count to, over the next two years or so for Hexagon, as a company, and the R&D centre?

As Hexagon’s R&D Center in India, we will continue to grow by increasing the value we are delivering to the overall business. That’s our vision. In the immediate future, our growth will be primarily driven by the new technologies that we are learning and owning including systems-level programming, deep dive into firmware and integration across platforms. We see this creating a huge core of innovation and opportunity for the business and for our customers.