more-in Mumbai: Entrepreneurs working to develop climate-friendly technologies in the State may now have a better chance at early stage survival, with Maharashtra set to get the country’s first business incubator. The announcement came affter a tie-up with Los Angeles-based Network for Global Innovation (NGIN) on Monday, the last day of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’s nine-day business trip to USA and Canada. Mr. Fadnavis signed an MoU with Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), a part of the NGIN — a collaborative entity of 36 best-in-class cleantech incubators operating worldwide to accelerate development of sustainable technologies and mitigate the destructive effects of climate change. The NGIN will help put in place an innovation ecosystem to accelerate adoption of sustainable technologies and encourage trade and investment in these technologies. The incubator will be given NGIN membership for trade and investment in sustainable technology. Among other initiatives announced by Mr. Fadnavis at a gathering arranged by U.S. think-tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and The US-India State and Urban Initiative on June 14 is a pilot research project to understand consumer dynamics and responsiveness to new technologies in the electricity sector. The project will be led by professors from the Georgia Institute of Technology. In the transportation sector, where the State government has projects lined up including the high-speed Hyperloop connecting Mumbai and Pune, an Urban Mobility Lab will be set up in Pune with help from Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Institute. The lab will be hosted by the Pune Municipal Corporation and will work to identity state-of-the-art transportation services to meet the needs of rapidly growing cities, while incorporating operational efficiency and reducting pollution, congestion, and petroleum demand. The agreements were signed a day after Morgan Stanley’s India Equity Strategy Report approved Mr Fadnavis’s roadmap for the State’s economic growth and innovative ambitions. The report, released in New York, said, “Mr. Fadnavis’s vision for Mumbai is the polar opposite of that held by the previous administrations. Thus, under the leadership of Mr Fadnavis, Mumbai is witnessing a sea change in public infrastructure from new bridges to metros and a new airport. This build is likely to take five years and probably result in a big shift in the city’s quality of life.”

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