At a time when most Indian researchers aimed for postdoctoral positions abroad, Dr Kishore Paknikar, a distinguished scientist and former director of the Agharkar Research Institute (ARI), Pune, would nudge his students— sometimes gently, sometimes firmly — towards entrepreneurship. He believed that if their science could address real-world problems, they were also capable of translating it into products, processes, and enterprises that could serve society directly. That belief led to an extraordinary outcome. From a single laboratory in a modest government-funded institute, seven start-ups have emerged over the years — each founded or co-founded by his former students. On the occasion of National Technology Day (May 11), these ventures, ranging across diagnostics, therapeutics, sustainable agriculture, bioinformatics, and clean technologies, stand as living proof of how a research lab can become a launchpad for enterprise. “It wasn’t glamorous back then. But the idea of building something meaningful, grounded in science, was always attractive,” Dr Paknikar, who is also a visiting professor at IIT Bombay, told The Indian Express. “If you’re solving a real problem, society needs …