About TIH IIT Bombay
TIH Foundation at IIT Bombay has been setup as a Section-8 company (not-for-profit) under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS), being implemented by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. TIH at IIT Bombay is focusing on creating a self-sustaining innovation continuum by fostering translational research for technology & product development, building highly knowledgeable human resource and a vibrant start-up ecosystem, in the technology vertical of Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Robotics. The goal is to help India become a pioneer in technology led economic growth and prepare the country to be the world leader in the technology arena.
CHANAKYA Fellowship Program
Comprehensive and Holistic Advancement of National Knowledge Yield and Analytics (CHANAKYA) is an initiative under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) with a focus on human resource development.
Engineering colleges/ Technical institutes in India are a huge pool of human resource in the form of students, but they are not sufficiently oriented towards reaching out to industry or solving problems that can benefit society. To overcome this gap and produce graduates trained in CPS who can be problem-solvers or turn entrepreneurs. In the present call for proposal, applications are invited for TIH IIT Bombay CHANAKYA Fellowship program 2025 (2).
This program provides an opportunity for faculty to form a group of students from various academic levels (UG and PG) to work on a project in the areas of AI. The project is proposed by the faculty and the students are a part of that team.
Guidelines for Group Formation:
- Faculty mentor/supervisor should apply on behalf of the group/team
- One Faculty / Supervisor cannot apply for more than 2 projects. Recommendation is to apply for the best 1 or 2 projects which has differentiator or IP potential.
- The faculty mentor or supervisor should create a project team made up of students from the same institute. The team can include either undergraduate (UG) students or only postgraduate (PG) students - not a mix of both
- The faculty can make a group as per the table below
| Sr. No. | Group Category | No. of Students |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | UG | 02-03 |
| 2. | PG | 01-03 |
- Project proposals for the Fellowship must be in the below application areas & technologies:
| Application Areas | Technology |
|---|---|
| BFSI / FinTech | AI, ML, Gen AI, Agentic AI, Voice AI, Speech AI, Computer Vision, Blockchain |
The Fellowship Scheme invites applications from motivated students to contribute towards the development of tools and applications across BFSI leveraging the technologies as mentioned above.
- 1. Digitization, extraction and analysis of Bank Statement ( pdf formats ) for all banks across India. This analysis can be used for various use cases like credit underwriting, etc
- 2. Detection of Synthetic Identities and Deepfakes: Fraudsters now use AI to create synthetic identities and deepfake videos or voice recordings to bypass KYC and authentication systems.
- 3. Real-time fraud detection and intervention
- 4. Blockchain-based QR code system tailored for NBFC loan documents, payment verification, insurance claim, Decentralized Identity (DID), etc.
- 5. Autonomous loan underwriting and credit scoring
- 6. AI-powered insurance underwriting
- 7. Intelligent Risk Assessment & Credit Scoring
- 8. AI-driven collections and recovery automation
- 9. Smart proposal builders for personalized financial products
- 10. Voice AI for Multilingual Banking
- 11. Automated Compliance & Regulatory Reporting. AI-powered tools can automate regulatory updates, flag non-compliance, and generate audit-ready reports. Solutions to check compliance against RBI FREE guidelines.
- 12. Metaverse / Virtual banking lounges
- 13. Wealth Management - Risk Profiling and product selection
- 14. Insurance claim validation based on photos of damaged goods or vehicles using VLMs. For example, assess damage severity from images; Detect fraudulent claims by comparing metadata and visual clues.
The projects must be from either of the categories as mentioned below
- Product / Solution Category
- Indicate the product category that the proposed project belongs to as per the definition below.
- Qualifying Features / Differentiators
- Detail out the features that qualify it for the chosen product category (max 100 words). This must list the differentiators and the unique selling point (USP) that gives an edge to your product even if similar products already exist in the market.
| Sr. No. | Product / Solution Category | Definition | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | New-to-the-world Products/Technology | Product that are inventions – new to the world, create a whole new market | Eg., List of features and differentiators that qualifies it in this category |
| 2. | Improvements to existing Products with significant value add | Products that exist in the market are made better by either extending or recreating with a key differentiator / unique selling point (USP) to gain market share | Eg., List of differentiator and unique selling point (USP) that qualifies it in this category |
| 3. | Cost Reductions / Indigenization of existing Products | This category includes new products that act as substitutes for existing ones, offering comparable performance at a lower cost and/or utilizing solutions developed indigenously. | Eg., For cost reduction projects, provide Performance and Cost benchmark of existing vs targeted solution.For Indigenous solutions, provide Competitive Feature Matrix. |
- Note: The ownership of the IP & Solution (code, models, documents, data, etc) will remain with the TIH IIT Bombay. The publication of these will be subject to prior approval from TIH IIT Bombay.
Eligibility Criteria
A) Undergraduate (UG)
- Students can be of any discipline of Engineering/Science of undergraduate course to be eligible for the fellowship.
- Students should have completed the first/second (engineering/science) year program and have at least 10 months left in their respective course at the time of sanction.
- Students should have a minimum Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) /Cumulative Performance Index (CPI) of 6.0 on the scale of 0-10; or a minimum of 60% marks in aggregate, till immediate previous semester/year, at the time of the start of fellowship.
- Students should not be receiving any other government funded scholarship/ Grants, during the period of fellowship
B) Postgraduate (PG)
- Students admitted to PG program in CPS or related areas at IITs, NITs and other AICTE/UGC approved institutions and having a valid GATE/JAM score. Dual degree students from IITs without GATE score are eligible for PG fellowship.
- The student should have a minimum Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA)/ Cumulative Performance Index (CPI) of 6.0 on the scale of 0-10 or a minimum of 60% marks in aggregate, till immediate previous semester/year/degree, at the time of the start of fellowship.
- Students should not be receiving any other Government funded fellowship/grants, during the period of the fellowship.
Support
A) Undergraduate (UG) Students
- Duration: up to 10 months.
- Monthly fellowship of INR 10,000/-.
- A maximum of INR 20,000/- per student towards consumables and contingency.
B) Postgraduate (PG) Students
- Duration: up to 2 years.
- Monthly fellowship of INR 12,400/-.
- A maximum of INR 50,000/- per student per year, towards consumables and contingency.
Note: The contingency fund can be utilized for covering the cost of travel and stay of the student, consumables, and conference/course registrations. The contingency grant cannot be used for capital expenditure.
How To Apply
- The faculty should form a group of students in any of the group categories and apply accordingly to the respective category of projects. The faculty must fill the application form on behalf of the group.
- Applications will only be accepted through the application form, link for which has been given below (Apply Now Button)
- The project proposal has to be prepared in the prescribed format given in the link (Project Proposal Format) and should be submitted along with the application form.
- Applicant (faculty mentor) should obtain a No Objection Certificate (NOC) in the given (NOC format) from their Institute and submit it along with the application form.
- The team can make only one project application in the registration form. However, for applying for more than one projects they will have to do separate registrations.
- One Faculty/Mentor from any institute cannot apply for more than 2 projects.
Registrations Open
Last date to apply: Thursday 25th December 2025
Disclaimer
ONLY SHORTLISTED APPLICANTS WILL BE NOTIFIED/INFORMED THROUGH EMAIL. The decision of TIH IIT Bombay in awarding the project will be final and binding and no correspondence shall be entertained in this regard.
Contact
For any queries related to the application process please write to us at
chanakya-iot@tihiitb.org
TIH IIT Bombay CHANAKYA Fellowship FAQ
The project work will be carried out at the host institute (Faculty applicant’s institute).
Yes, you can make a team from different departments of the same Institute/University.
No, the team should comprise of students from the same institute/university.
Yes, all the students in the team will receive a certificate of completion at the end of the fellowship.
Please refer to the eligibility section in the call for proposal.
Faculty mentor/supervisor should apply on behalf of the group/team. Faculty mentor/supervisor should form a team from same institute and nominate one of the students as team leader to work on the proposed project.
The faculty can make a group as per the table below.
| Sr. No | Group Category | No. of Students | |
| 1 | UG | 2-3 | |
| 2 | PG | 1-3 | |
TIH IIT Bombay will expect a quarterly progress report signed by the faculty supervisor/mentor.
Yes, GATE score is mandatory. Please refer to the eligibility section in the call for proposal.
No, the student is not eligible if he/she is already in receipt of any central or state government scholarship/fellowship
Yes. There can be a guide and a co-guide however the application must be processed through the guide only.
You need to surrender the existing government fellowship if you receive the CHANAKYA fellowship. Also, the NOC as per format is to be submitted of not receiving any other fellowship.