INTEC inaugurates Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Santo Domingo.- With the presence of the Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Ligia Amada Melo, the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) inaugurated the new facilities of its Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center, through which it will expand its support and advice to entrepreneurs and innovators in the development of creative projects and new businesses that add value to society and the Dominican economy.
The new facilities strengthen the initiatives promoted by the Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovation of the Research and Linking Vice-Rectory of INTEC, created as part of the 2007-2012 Institutional Strategy, which is implemented from 2007.
The Rector of INTEC, Miguel J. Escala, explained that the Center has its background in the culture of innovation that has characterized this institution since its foundation. Between 1996 and 2004 the university held each year the INTEC Forum with Dominican Entrepreneurs, sponsored by the Business Area. In 2005 the first Intecnology Fair was held, which has been developed annually as a space to encourage the innovative ideas of students.
Business facilities
With an investment of more than one and a half million pesos of INTEC's own funds, students and graduates entrepreneurs and innovators will have access to an area equipped with computers, telephone, Internet and videoconferencing connections, conference room and support services to work on the development of your projects.
Additionally, they will continue with the support of the INTEC laboratories (in materials science, mechanics, mechatronics, manufacturing and electricity, among others) for the realization of technical studies and the preparation of prototypes of products, which constitutes a distinctive feature of the projects promoted by INTEC.
As part of the INTEC Program for Creativity, Entrepreneurship and Innovation students and graduates of the university receive advice on prospecting and feasibility analysis of business opportunities, development of the model and business plan, preparation of designs and prototypes functional, and presentation to interested investors.
The objective is to reach agreements to produce new products or enter the pre-incubation stage to form a new company. Said consultancies cover the financial, marketing and organizational aspects of the projects as well as the legal ones, including those related to intellectual property. For this, it has close ties with ONAPI (National Office of Industrial Property).
Innovations from INTEC
In recent years INTEC students have formulated several projects and prototypes of new products such as Nido, Eye-Sight, Bio-Hogar and Voltus. The latter was the winner of the first place of the INTEC in the 2010 Business Plans Competition held by the MESCyT.
Members of the Board of Regents, INTEC authorities and professors, businessmen and representatives of different entities linked to the institution and its projects were present at the activity. The main table was made up of the Vice-rector for Research and Liaison of INTEC, Julio Sánchez Mariñez; Leandra Tapia, Academic Vice Chancellor; Luís Sánchez Noble, President of Dominicana Incuba; Miguel J. Escala, Rector of INTEC; Ligia Amada Melo, Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology; Orlando Pérez, Director of the National Entrepreneurship Program of the MESCyT and Anne Sophie Tejeda, Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation of INTEC.
The initiative is part of the part of the Institutional Strategy 2012 that has been implemented since 2007 and that highlights students as the center of institutional work and favors Technological Research and Innovation of Impact on National Development.