Wadhwani Foundation and Gates Foundation have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen India’s innovation ecosystem through the National Innovation Network (NIN), a national-scale expansion of the Wadhwani Innovation Network (WIN).
The partnership aims to accelerate translational research and entrepreneurial innovation in high-impact sectors including health, nutrition, biotechnology, genomics, medtech and other emerging areas aligned with India’s development priorities.
Support for innovation centres
As part of the collaboration, the Gates Foundation will support five NIN Centres of Excellence (CoEs) over a five-year period, beginning with two centres in the current year.
The supported centres will help researchers move innovations beyond laboratory-stage research (TRL-4+) toward commercial and real-world deployment through proof-of-concept development, prototyping, validation, pilot deployments, intellectual property support, venture creation and industry partnerships.
Expansion of WIN model
Launched on April 29, 2025, the Wadhwani Innovation Network (WIN) was established to bridge academia, industry and funding partners, enabling faster research-to-market pathways in India. The National Innovation Network now expands this framework at a national level.
Since its launch, WIN has supported more than 50 high-potential projects across healthtech, medtech, biotechnology and quantum technologies. It has also established Centres of Excellence at institutions including Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) Dhanbad, Indian Institute of Science and Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms.
Two upcoming Super Hubs include the Wadhwani School of AI & Intelligent Systems at IIT Kanpur and the Wadhwani Health & Bio Hub at IIT Bombay.
National innovation platform
NIN is designed as a broader collaborative platform enabling government agencies, philanthropies, CSR initiatives, corporates and institutional partners to support translational research and innovation through a shared operational and governance framework developed by the Wadhwani Foundation.
Wadhwani Foundation CEO Ajay Kela said the WIN model has demonstrated that India’s innovation potential can be unlocked when researchers, institutions, industry and capital collaborate with a shared mission.
He added that NIN will help democratise innovation across India and strengthen the country’s position as a global innovation hub by enabling researchers and entrepreneurs to convert breakthrough ideas into products, startups and societal impact.
Focus on affordable innovation
Gates Foundation India Country Office Director Archna Vyas said some of the most significant health and nutrition innovations of the next decade are expected to emerge from Indian institutions.
She said the collaboration with Wadhwani Foundation will help strengthen translational pathways that enable Indian researchers and entrepreneurs to convert scientific discoveries into affordable and scalable solutions for India and the Global South.
Long-term vision
NIN aims to establish 250 Centres of Excellence across India over the next three to five years through partner institutions.
The initiative is focused on enabling translational research, researcher entrepreneurship, venture creation and commercialization in areas of national priority, with the broader goal of translating thousands of innovations annually from laboratories to the market while generating large-scale socio-economic impact and employment opportunities.