Innovation Fellowship set to strengthen New Zealand–India ties

Darsel Keane, Director of the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland, has been appointed to the 2026 Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fellowship at the New Zealand Centre hosted by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi.

The Fellowship is a joint initiative of New Zealand’s eight universities and IIT Delhi, one of India’s leading technology institutions. It aims to strengthen collaboration between the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems of Aotearoa New Zealand and India.

In May, Keane will spend two weeks in India meeting start-ups, incubators, accelerators, venture capitalists and government agencies. She will visit innovation hubs and research institutions and participate in conferences and workshops to identify partnership opportunities and deepen mutual understanding of each country’s innovation landscape.

Keane brings more than a decade of experience in entrepreneurship education and venture activation. As Director of CIE, she leads an internationally recognised centre that supports students, researchers and alumni to develop entrepreneurial mindsets and launch start-ups.

Her academic work focuses on entrepreneurship education and mindset development, and she is currently completing a PhD examining the impact of entrepreneurship activities on students’ capabilities and intentions. Under her leadership, CIE has received multiple international awards for excellence in entrepreneurship education.

“India is one of the most dynamic innovation ecosystems in the world,” says Keane. “For our students and researchers, understanding how ideas scale in different cultural and market contexts is invaluable. This Fellowship is about building relationships that lead to meaningful collaboration.”

India’s rapid growth in technology, deep tech and start-up creation makes it an increasingly important partner for Aotearoa New Zealand. The Fellowship aligns with the Government’s focus on productivity, innovation and research commercialisation, and reflects a broader shift toward impact-driven, cross-sector collaboration.

For the University of Auckland, which has recently strengthened education and research links with Indian institutions, the appointment reinforces its commitment to global engagement. Stronger connections with India create opportunities for joint research, student mobility, start-up exchange and co-developed innovation initiatives.

Keane sees the Fellowship as a reciprocal opportunity. “We have built a distinctive model at CIE that integrates curriculum partnerships, venture programmes and community engagement,” she says. “There is strong interest internationally in how we embed innovation capability across disciplines and communities.”

Potential outcomes include co-hosted innovation challenges, shared accelerator pathways, research commercialisation partnerships and reciprocal visits by Indian ecosystem leaders to Aotearoa.