Dr. Aruna A.P. brings over twenty three years of experience in senior management in University academics and business incubation; International Technology Business Acceleration and Research & Innovation. Her experience covers entrepreneurship education, management responsibilities, Startup validation and funding in tech business incubation. She has held positions on a university academic council and board of studies for entrepreneurship education.
Ms. Aruna holds both Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Agriculture and a PhD in Biotechnology. She completed mentorship training at UC-Berkeley (2009), an executive programme in Technology Commercialisation for Business Incubator Management (2011) and Advanced Incubation Managers Training(2017),both at the IC² Institute at The University of Texas at Austin.
Dr.Aruna is the CEO of Periyar TBI from 2006. For a brief period (2016-19) she worked as a senior Programme Manager at XLr8 Andhra Pradesh, Govt of AP, associating with Experts from IC2 institute of University of Texas, Austin in the management of startup recruitment, assessment, training and validation. She coordinated academic partnerships, student internships, boot camps and faculty mentoring. She also served as a senior consultant with IIIT Sri City (an Institute of National Importance) and established research office procedures and coordinated setting up of various clubs under elected Student Council. She also organized the recruitment processes for faculty and staff.
She has won three Rural Innovation Awards from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, India, and has served as Technology Angel for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Government of India, as well as executive committee member of Indian STEPs and Business Incubators Association. She was a mentor in the CII-CSR Gateway Project. She served as evaluator and mentor for the “Power of Ideas” competition jointly hosted by DST-IIM Ahmadabad, and is a certified trainer with World Bank under its infoDev programme.
Ms. Aruna wrote the proposal and received funding (INR.477lakhs) from Department of S&T, GoI to establish Periyar TBI as India’s First TBI for women entrepreneurs and also the first TBI under section 25 of Indian Companies Act in 2006. She made the incubator operationally self sustainable within four years of its establishment. She proved her ability in converting even regular student projects into business incubation and involving faculty in this mission. NAAC committee-2015 also recognized her contribution to the university research promotion and incubation by making a mention in its exit report that “a strong and well maintained incubation centre”. Throughout her tenure in the past, she raised external funding for all her programmes and had run them commercially successful. She was instrumental in bagging a project to make training simulators for Indian Air Force. She is capable of engaging students in innovation and entrepreneurship related activities and motivate them receive proper coaching and mentoring. Three of her incubatee companies won national awards and grants including Biotechnology Ignition Grant from DBT, Govt.of India.
