Assistant Director - Innovative Ecosystem

ABOUT RISHIHOOD UNIVERSITY Rishihood is India’s first national transformation university. It prepares learners to solve the big problems of tomorrow. Our transformative education is built on three pillars:

• Personal Impact – developing physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual strength.
• Professional Impact – building real-world skills through industry-integrated, practice-based learning.
• Public Impact – fostering interdisciplinary thinking and a commitment to nation-building. At Rishihood, we nurture leaders who will transform themselves, their professions, and the nation. POSITION | Assistant Director – Innovative Ecosystem, SASTech Purpose The Assistant Director builds the ecosystem around Rishihood’s new Makerspace, which is core infrastructure for hands-on learning, applied research and innovation at the Sajjan Agarwal School of Technology. The role brings tech clubs, industry projects and partners together around real problems. Lab operations and technical mentoring remain with the Makerspace Lead.

Responsibilities

• Tech clubs: Bring all technology clubs under one Makerspace framework, move them from events to year-round project work, and run a common calendar of hackathons, build sprints and showcases.
• Industry projects: Source real problems from companies and startups, scope them into student-executable projects with clear deliverables and mentors, and manage them from intake to delivery, including IP and confidentiality terms.
• Partnerships: Build long-term ties for sponsored projects, mentoring, internships and joint research, and link project work to internships and placements.
• Programme management: Turn SASTech and University priorities into programmes with owners, timelines and budgets and report progress to the Director.
• Visibility and resources: Run demo days and case studies, pursue grants, sponsorships and competitions, and support pathways from prototype to startup, patent or deployment.

Qualifications

& Experience

• Master’s degree in Engineering, Technology or Management (MBA or technical Master’s preferred).
• 8+ years of experience in industry–academia partnerships, innovation programmes, corporate relations or technology programme management.
• Proven record of bringing industry projects or partnerships into an institution, with experience in student communities and project-based learning.
• Working understanding of hardware, robotics, IoT or software development.
• Familiarity with Mo. Us, IP and confidentiality; strong stakeholder management and communication skills.