Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 29 (IANS) Fifty commercialization agreements were inked here Thursday by the 2011 winners of the DST-Lockheed Martin India Innovation Growth Programme that aims at getting new technology from the laboratory to the marketplace.

The deals were signed during the Trivandrum Technology Expo.

The India Innovation Growth Programme was launched in March 2007 by Lockheed Martin, the Department of Science and Technology, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the University of Texas.

Under this programme, innovators, inventors, scientists and researchers with promising early-stage technologies are helped to find markets in the US and other locations around the world.

‘Programmes like the DST-Lockheed Martin India Innovation Growth will help our innovators with specialized and critical services, to commercialize and globalize. This nationwide programme enhances the growth and development of local entrepreneurial ecosystem,’ said Minister for Industries and IT P.K. Kunhalikutty.

Many of the programme winners had technologies that dealt with energy and environmental initiatives.