Established in 2006, RTBI IITM focuses on nurturing enterprises building rural inclusive business ventures through designing products and services for rural needs which have a technology component. RTBI has incubated 12 companies of which 2 have graduated successfully.

RTBI is associated with Indian Institute of Technology Madras, among the foremost institutes of national importance in higher technological education, basic and applied research. IIT Madras is a residential institute with nearly 460 faculty, 4500 students and 1250 administrative & supporting staff and is a self-contained campus located in a beautiful wooded land of about 250 hectares. The Institute has fifteen academic departments and a few advanced research centres in various disciplines of engineering and pure sciences, with nearly 100 laboratories organized in a unique pattern of functioning. Faculty of international repute, a brilliant student community, excellent technical & supporting staff and an effective administration have contributed to the pre-eminent status of IIT Madras. The campus is located in the city of Chennai, previously known as Madras.

The major thrust of RTBI’s activities apart from conferences, workshops and training programs is that of hand holding and mentoring young entrepreneurs focused on building rural inclusive business ventures. Currently, RTBI is working with partners towards solutions in voice-based Information access system, compilation of specific information for a Geographical Information System and creation of a rural data bank. In the past year, RTBI has been engaged in the following incubation sectors: Education, Health, Agriculture, Financial Inclusion, Vocational Training and Technology solutions appropriate to rural needs. About 5 incubatee ventures of RTBI have received  upto 5 lakhs from seed fund.