Build@IITM
The Best Place to Build
Students here don't just learn engineering — they build race cars, drones, hyperloop pods, and startups. CFI has been running since 2008.
Centre for Innovation
CFI — where students build things that actually work
The Centre for Innovation (CFI) is a student-run technical lab that's been operating since 2008 — one of the oldest student innovation centres in India. Open 24/7, it's where students build racing cars, underwater vehicles, satellites, and everything in between.
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Team Raftaar Racing
IITM's Formula SAE team builds and races a new car every year. Students design the engine, chassis, electronics — everything.
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Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
The UAV club builds competition drones and conducts aerial robotics research — with wins at international competitions.
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Hyperloop & Satellites
IITM students have competed in the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod competition and built small satellites as part of space research projects.
Build culture
The campus that gave India Ather Energy
Ather Energy — one of India's biggest EV companies — was started by two IITM students who met in CFI. IITM's builder culture is real: the infrastructure, the peer group, the faculty network, and the Research Park all make it unusually easy to go from idea to prototype to company.
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Ather Energy
Founded by Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain — both IITM alumni who started building EVs while still students at CFI.
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Nirmaan Pre-Incubator
A structured programme that takes student startup ideas from concept to validated prototypes with mentorship and seed funding.
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IITM Incubation Cell
Provides office space, legal support, investor connects, and a community of 200+ startups right inside the Research Park.
What you can join
There's a technical team for every interest
CFI hosts 15+ student technical clubs. You don't need prior experience to join most of them — just curiosity and time. Recruits are taken in the first semester of the first year.
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Electronics & Robotics Club
From basic electronics to advanced robotics — one of the most active clubs in CFI with year-round projects.
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Programming Club
Competitive programming, open-source contributions, and project-based coding — with some of the best coders in the country.
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Design Studio
Product design, UX, graphic design — the studio runs workshops, projects, and works with student clubs across campus.