Chennai, July 24: Wadhwani School of Data Science and AI, IIT Madras, has announced a one-week, in-person short course designed to help aspiring entrepreneurs, researchers, students and early-stage startups translate AI ideas into viable ventures.
Titled ‘Building a Successful AI Startup’, the course will be held from 10th to 14th August 2026 at IIT Madras. The programme will provide participants with practical, hands-on exposure to the different stages of building an AI startup - from identifying a market opportunity and developing a minimum viable product to refining a business model, preparing for fundraising and pitching to investors.
The course will be led by Mr. Lakshmi Shankar, General Partner at Together Fund and former Vice President, Google Search. He has held leadership positions at Twitter, IBM, EY and is a Sloan Fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Designed as an immersive learning experience, the programme combines classroom sessions, practical exercises and discussions around real-world AI startup journeys. Participants will explore topics including customer discovery, market validation, product-market fit, user acquisition, revenue strategy, fundraising, term sheet negotiations and scaling AI ventures.
The programme will culminate in a Pitch Day, where participants will present their startup ideas before a panel of investors. The top team will receive ₹4,00,000 to support the development of their AI venture.
The programme is open to final-year BTech, MTech and PhD students, faculty members, researchers, engineers, product managers, aspiring entrepreneurs and early-stage AI startups looking to build and commercialise AI-driven solutions.