Innovation Associate

Location: Bangalore

Employment Type: Consultant

Role Purpose

The Innovation Associate provides operational, analytical, research, and program management support to innovation and technology development initiatives. The role serves as the execution and coordination backbone for innovation programs by managing project administration, conducting research, collecting metrics, preparing governance reviews, maintaining ecosystem databases, and generating first-level recommendations to support decision-making by the Innovation Program Manager and leadership teams.

The role is primarily focused on ground-level execution, data collection, analysis, coordination, documentation, and operational support, rather than direct ownership of innovation programs.

Key Responsibilities

1. Innovation Program Support

• Support onboarding and setup of innovation, research, and technology development projects.

• Maintain project documentation, trackers, governance records, and project repositories.

• Track project plans, milestones, deliverables, risks, dependencies, and action items.

• Coordinate with project teams to collect progress updates and supporting evidence.

• Assist in preparation of project status reports, review packs, and management presentations.

• Support execution of stage-gate reviews from concept through commercialization.

• Help arrange infrastructure to the startups/innovation projects as a proactive problem solver(servant leader)

2. Research, Analysis & Recommendations

• Conduct technology, market, competitor, and industry research to support innovation initiatives.

• Monitor emerging technology trends, startup ecosystems, patent activity, and commercialization opportunities.

• Compile research findings into structured reports and executive summaries.

• Collect project performance data and generate first-level observations and recommendations.

• Support preparation of investment review notes, technology assessments, and opportunity evaluations.

• Maintain databases of relevant technologies, research organizations, startups, and industry developments.

3. Governance & PMO Operations

• Maintain innovation project dashboards, trackers, and reporting systems.

• Schedule and coordinate project reviews, governance meetings, steering committee meetings, and stakeholder discussions.

• Track closure of review actions and decisions.

• Maintain standard templates, project documentation, review formats, and knowledge repositories.

• Ensure timely collection and consolidation of project information for management reviews.

4. Innovation Ecosystem Development

• Build and maintain databases of:

  • Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

  • Industry mentors

  • Technology consultants

  • Research institutions

  • Industry associations

  • Technology vendors and service providers

• Support engagement activities with external ecosystem partners.

• Maintain supplier and service-provider directories relevant to innovation and product development activities.

5. Intellectual Property & Compliance Support

• Maintain records of invention disclosures, patents, copyrights, and technology assets.

• Support preparation and tracking of IP-related documentation and agreements.

• Monitor key IP milestones and reporting requirements.

• Maintain innovation program records and compliance documentation.

6. Metrics, Reporting & Knowledge Management

• Collect, validate, and consolidate innovation program metrics.

• Maintain dashboards covering project progress, investments, technology readiness, commercialization status, and ecosystem engagement.

• Generate periodic reports and analytical summaries for management.

• Capture lessons learned, best practices, and reusable knowledge assets.

• Maintain centralized innovation knowledge repositories and documentation systems.
  

7. Creating and Managing the Systems

• Understand the deep tech problems and help create ecosystem along with program manager

• Drive the tools and scripts towards creation of such system; 

• Deploy and manageme, enhance the ecosystem

• Anchor PDCA cycle for such system usage within the ARTPARK usage environment

Desired Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering in Computer Science /Electronics/AI and associated fields

• PSM/PMP certification/training completion desirable

• People management exposure is a must

• Postgraduate qualification or certification in Innovation, Product Management or Project Management is desirable.

Experience

• 6–9 years of experience in innovation programs, research projects, PMO functions, technology development, consulting, startup ecosystems, or related roles.

Key Competencies

Functional Skills

• Research and analytical skills

• Project coordination and PMO support

• Data collection and reporting

• Technology and market assessment

• Documentation and knowledge management

• Dashboard and metrics management

Behavioral Skills

• Strong attention to detail

• Structured and organized working style

• Stakeholder coordination capability

• Problem-solving and analytical thinking

• Effective written and verbal communication

• Ability to manage multiple activities simultaneously

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Timeliness and quality of project reporting.

• Accuracy and completeness of innovation program metrics.

• Closure rate of governance review action items.

• Quality of research reports and recommendation notes.

• Completeness of SME, vendor, and ecosystem databases.

• Review readiness and documentation quality.

• Knowledge repository utilization and upkeep.

• Stakeholder satisfaction with program support services.

Role Profile: An execution-focused innovation operations professional responsible for research, coordination, analytics, governance support, ecosystem management, and preparation of decision-support material for the Innovation Program Manager and leadership team.

ARTPARK @ IISc :  Innovation factory for next-gen robotics & AI
ARTPARK is India's leading deep-tech venture builder and incubator focused on robotics, connected autonomous systems, and AI. Leveraging our unique facilities and ecosystems, we strive to provide meaningful support to very early-stage startups building deep-tech products based in research. We are a nonprofit organization created by Indian Institute of Science (IISc, Bengaluru) with support from the Department of Science & Technology (Government of India) and the Government of Karnataka.