Month: April 2019

Stronger Economy, Cleaner Waters

Business Standard    The New Indian Express     NDTV

A study by IIT Kharagpur researchers has connected the dots between the impact of economic growth reducing fecal coliform (FC) pathogens in groundwater which is a key factor causing water-borne diseases in the densely populated Indo-Ganges-Brahmaputra river basin.

About 100,000 children in India are dying every year from waterborne enteric diseases like diarrhea. While the study reported the excess of fecal coliform concentration in potable groundwater in rural regions in the said area, it also made first-time observations on a significant reduction of fecal pathogen concentration in the spatially variable groundwater from 2002 to 2017.

“Looking beyond the country globally, more than 2 billion people, mostly living in economically stressed areas of Africa and South Asia still do not have access to basic sanitation, and more than 1 billion still opt for open defecation. The resulting unsafe disposal of faecal waste to nearby drinking water sources poses an extremely serious environmental crisis and public health concern,” says Prof. Abhijit Mukherjee, faculty at the School of Environmental Science and Engineering and Dept. of Geology and Geophysics at IIT Kharagpur who led the research project.

The researchers studied data for the densely populated Indo-Ganges-Brahmaputra river basin, across 234 districts in Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Assam and also Delhi and NCR and a population of ~ 400 million. The study data collected from National Rural Drinking Water Programme, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Govt. of India, covered almost last three decades to delineate the long-term improvement trends of groundwater quality across India, as a consequence of the development.

Figures suggesting the a) trends of decrease in faecal coliform in groundwater between 2002-2017 with the study area of Indus Ganges Brahmaputra basin (Rajasthan, NCR, UP, MP, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Assam), b and c) comparison trends of anomalies between groundwater quality and economic development (observed as satellite-observed night-time light), d) changes in economic development across study area, as observed from night-time light

Uniqueness in this study to determine economic development trends and correlations was the use of nigh-time light data instead of GDP or other economic growth data. “We have used satellite-based Night-time Light information based on Defence Meteorological Satellite Program of the US Air Force, archived by NOAA/NASA for the period 1992-2013. In most areas economic development, suggested by increasing satellite-based nightlight correlated to the reduction in fecal coliform concentration and alleviation of water quality,” explained Srimanti Duttagupta, a Ph.D. scholar at IIT Kharagpur, first author of the research paper which has come out recently based on this study.

The other dataset used was high-resolution geographically spatial information of waterborne fecal pathogen concentration in groundwater from the period 2002-2017. Numerical and statistical analyses were performed on aforesaid culled datasets to understand the efficiency of development in alleviating the water quality and public health, and relationship with economic development. The study showed that the spatially variable groundwater faecal pathogen concentration from 2002-2017 has significantly decreased across the basin. From 2002 – 2013, Night-time Light on the surface area as seen from satellites increased by +3.05% per year and faecal coliform pollution decreased -1.39% per year.

The research group observed a significant decrease in groundwater fecal coliform concentration after 2014, in the acquired data. This could be a direct outcome of improved sanitation construction and utilization of sanitation structures, instituted by the Clean India (Swatch Bharat) mission of the Government of India Prof. Mukherjee remarked, however, needs more data to confirm. “Nevertheless, in areas with inferior water quality, improper human practices outweigh economic development in affecting human health,” he added.

It was observed that areas with lower literacy rate and very high population density suffer from poor groundwater quality because of faecal coliform pollution, irrespective of economic development. The problem of overpopulation and slums is an intricate problem which is reflected in all life aspects in countries like India. The study reflects through results that higher faecal coliform concentration in urban, and peri-urban areas, suggesting economic progress may not be the only influencing factor on water quality alleviation.

The researchers opined that social behavior and practices, use and disuse and beliefs are mostly related to lower literacy rate. In turn, these results lack awareness and encourage malpractice on sanitation, eventually leading to increased fecal waste into drinking water sourced to groundwater.

The research was published this year in the Journal of Earth System Science published by Indian Academy of Sciences.

Download Research Paper

A Kgpian for A Kgpian

Alumnus and eminent academician Prof. Tapan Bagchi (DSc/2012), is setting up a Chair Professorship in the memory of illustrious alumnus Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya who recently passed away. An MoU to this effect was signed last week with Prof. Bagchi to this effect.

The objective of the ‘Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya Chair Professorship Award’ will be to carry out state-of-the-art teaching, research development and industrial collaboration at the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Lord Bhattacharyya was a renowned academic, manufacturing expert and leading consultant for industry and governments. He served as a Professor at the University of Warwick. The entrepreneur in him led him to found the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), UK’s leading research and innovation centre. He did his BTech in 1960 in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur. He has contributed immensely to his alma mater through spearheading various collaborations between the Institute and WMG in areas encompassing design and manufacturing, composites and sustainable materials, sound quality engineering, medical technology and healthcare, hybrid vehicles and steel technology. WMG also became the international partner of IIT Kharagpur’s Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology in 2015. Lord Bhattacharyya passed away in February 2019. (Click here to read more on Lord Bhattacharyya)

To honour the contributions of Lord Bhattacharyya, Prof. Tapan Bagchi, who himself is a stalwart and academic expert in multifarious domains and has been associated with IIT Kharagpur and various other academic institutions as faculty and as Director, is setting up an endowment for an amount ₹75, 00,000/- to cover the Chair Award expenses for perpetuity.

WMG set up by Late Prof Lord Bhattacharyya and the Warwick University too, have agreed to support this initiative.

Prof. Bagchi is currently serving as Adjunct Professor at IIT Kharagpur. The students and researchers have been benefitted with his dynamic expertise in areas including  Specialty Chemicals Manufacturing, Production Planning, Supply Chain Management, TQM, Product Engineering, Process Engineering, Technology Transfer, Petrochemicals R&D, Facilities Planning, Economic and Cost Analysis and Corporate Planning. He was previously faculty at the Dept. of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Vinod Gupta School of Management before joining Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (Shirpur) and KiiT University (Bhubaneswar) as Director. He has also served as faculty at IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay and has an academic association at present with IIM Lucknow. IIT Kharagpur awarded him D.Sc. in 2012.

Prof. Bagchi has also set up a modern Reading Room cum Lounge in the Institute’s Central Library.

New Course with Jindal Stainless

New elective course to commence from July this year as part of PG & UG curriculum

Business World     APN News   Business Standard  The Week    Asian Age   Economic Times   Jagran Josh   Deccan Chronicle  Steelguru  Swarajya   Indian Express

IIT Kharagpur and Jindal Stainless have tied-up to introduce a 3-credit course on stainless steel and advanced ferrous alloys as a part of the premier Institute’s undergraduate and post-graduate curriculum for Metallurgical and Materials Engineering.

The course shall comprise the study of stainless steel and the uniqueness of its various grades, behavioral and forming characteristics, determination of life-cycle cost, and an understanding of the entire gamut of applications; along with the study of advanced ferrous alloys.

The course shall commence as an elective from the autumn semester of the institute (July-November 2019), with an expected initial batch of around 50-60 students.

Head, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering and School of Nano-Science and Technology, IIT Kharagpur, Dr. Rahul Mitra said “We are pleased that the Senate at IIT Kharagpur has approved the introduction of this elective course. The curriculum shall focus on a detailed study of different aspects of stainless steel and ferrous alloys. We thank Jindal Stainless for their efforts and look forward to a healthy industry-academia relationship.”

Managing Director, Jindal Stainless, Mr. Abhyuday Jindal said, “Educating young and brilliant minds about the wonders of stainless steel is the first step to nurturing a generation of future-proof engineers. As pioneers of stainless steel in India, we are propelling this transformation through our country’s premier institutes. I am certain that with the support of IIT Kharagpur, this course will pave the way for cost-efficient and sustainable infrastructure and an efficient public transport system. Stainless steel, as an environmentally-stable green metal, will be the perfect tool for this initiative.”

Director, Jindal Stainless, Mr. S Bhattacharya added, “As a dynamic and green metal, stainless steel has the potential to re-imagine sustainability. In India, it is still at a nascent stage, with a per capita consumption of 2 kg, as compared to the global average of 6 kg. This void provides immense opportunities to tap stainless steel efficiently in architecture-building-construction, automobile-railway-transport, and process industries, among other industrial applications. I am certain that with IIT Kharagpur’s expertise, we will be able to drive awareness among the future Indian engineers and architects.”

The course curriculum will also expose students to stainless steel fabrication through plant visits to the manufacturing units of Jindal Stainless in Hisar and Pathredi in Haryana. According to the new curriculum, the duration of this 3-credit elective course will be 4 months, with 3 lectures per week. Given that stainless steel is one of the fastest growing metals globally, this course shall open new professional avenues for graduating students.

Champions of EXL EQ

India Education Diary   Careers360    Times of India    Jagran Josh

Two teams from IIT Kharagpur swept 3 out of 4 awards at the final round of EXL Excellence Quotient 2019. Team Ninety Degrees of Anmol Thakkar & Ayush Bansal from IIT Kharagpur secured the 1st position and Team Tesseract of Ayush Patnaik & Prakhar Prakash secured 2nd position thereby bringing laurels to the Institute.

Winning Team: Ayush Bansal (L) and Anmol Thakkar (R)
Runners-up: Ayush Patnaik and Prakhar Prakash

EXL Excellence Quotient (EQ) is an annual case study contest structured to test skills like problem identification, logical thinking, structured and methodical approach and efficient analysis amongst its participants. Students from 20 premier academic institutes across the country including 8 IITs and 7 NITs participated in the competition. A total of 698 teams registered out of which 38 qualified through 1st Round and only 6 teams made it through the 2nd Round to the National Finals.

The challenge pertained to designing improved fraud detection methodologies & optimize the cost of the investigation in the insurance industry. They were asked to suggest ways to improve the fraud detection process in terms of accuracy as well as the time is taken for the entire process.

“Trust is an important aspect for an insurance company because it is selling a promise. Taking advantage of the holistic dataset provided in the competition, we gained insights into the entire value chain and created data features around metrics of trust,” explained Anmol Thakkar, a student from the IIT Kharagpur’s winning team. The insurance claims were then analyzed using these metrics and fraudulent claims were identified. “We built an algorithm that supported all offerings that an insurance company has on its roadmap and presented fraud prevention methodologies like telematics plug, that can help a company turn around their revenue numbers,” he added.

3 teams from IIT Kharagpur participated in the event. The winning team, Team Ninety Degrees from IIT Kharagpur received a cash prize of Rs. 1.25 Lakhs along with certificates and winning trophy. The runner ups, Team Tesseract from IIT Kharagpur received a cash prize of Rs. 60 thousand. Pre-placement offers were extended to the winning teams.

The case study contest provides participants platform to learn and experience real life consulting problems faced by organizations and how they can apply their academic learning and business acumen to offer solutions to such problems. EXL EQ 2019 offered participants an opportunity to engage in decision analytics using various data handling tools.

Earth Day on IIT KGP campus

Vision Prabaho, the eco-conservation-cum- awareness forum of IIT Kharagpur, observed Earth Day 2019 with its program for “Un-nailing Trees”. Volunteers of the group went around the campus armed with pliers to pull out nails, brackets, iron rods, wires and screws from tree trunks.

This was their attempt to prolong the life span of the trees. Each nail or protrusion hammered into trees interrupt the circulation of water, sugars and other valuable nutrients, thereby damaging them. Not surprisingly, the area surrounding the nails or bits of metal become dark and stop growing.

Within an hour, the foreign objects extricated from the barks of trees along the road facing the Tata Sports Complex had filled a whole bag.

Several students on their way back from class asked the volunteers what they were doing. “We use the nails to hang sponsorship ads. Do they need to be pulled out?” asked some of them.

Atanuka Paul, a volunteer of Vision Prabaho said, “We had to explain to them how the metals harm the plants. None of us are really conscious of the harm we are doing with our little actions.”

The movement for ‘un-nailing trees’ has been gathering storm in several cities in the country since 2016. Citizens and civic activists in Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru have removed posters and nails from trees in concerted drives. Vision Prabaho hopes to raise awareness on this matter in the IIT Kharagpur campus.

The group has been quite active since it was formed under the aegis of the Technology Students’ Gymkhana last year. Prof. William Kumar Mohanty, President, Technology Students’ Gymkhana, said, “Vision Prabaho has taken up a big responsibility and within a year has been able to influence a lot of people with their zeal.”

The group has also been imparting lessons in eco-conservatism to school children for the past few months. Formed mostly of research scholars, Vision Prabaho plans to teach children how to generate vermicompost from kitchen waste and use it for organic farming. Vision Prabaho has also been campaigning steadfastly against the use of plastic bags on campus. In the coming days, the group hopes to begin a movement against the use of thermocol.

 

The DJ Has Arrived

Kgpians are known for their dynamic talents beyond being technologists, researchers, corporate leaders, administrators. While some choose the offbeat career, some go with a balance between the two worlds of an IITian’s career as well as pursuing their passion in other creative fields.

Dhananjay Collur, who studied to become an engineer in the field of Electronics and Electrical Communications at IIT Kharagpur, is among the latter. After being a corporate professional and entrepreneur for 35 years, he has turned to his heart’s call – Music.

Dhananjay, popularly known as DJ among his IIT KGP peer group, has released his maiden album ‘Unrequited Love‘.

The album is a collection of five love songs about discovering love, falling in love, losing loving, getting back love and unrequited love.

“When it comes to music, there are prodigies, there are late bloomers, and then there’s the category that I decided to form as an exclusive member. I’ve done 8 years of corporate life, 27 years of entrepreneur life, and now look forward to doing music for the rest of my life. Here goes nothing,” says DJ.

The album was recently shared by Director Prof. P P Chakrabarti on his social media handle. “Happy to share a new album of my RK senior Dhananjay Collur. Doubly excited that the launch is being facilitated by @songdewnetwork, founded by another RK-ite – Sunil Khanna. Really enjoyed listening to all the 5 songs,” read his post.

Let’s support IIT KGP’s very own DJ’s new musical journey & make this album become a digital chartbuster.

Do Like, Share & Leave your reviews. Stream here => http://bitly/DJ_Unrequited_Love

The Social Salesperson

Economic Times    Economic Times (Bangalore)    Economic Times (Delhi)    Economic Times (Kolkata)

Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed a new marketing model for influencing sales on social media. While customer reviews play a critical factor in online sales through social media, the researchers have developed an advanced model to identify influencers who could have more influence on potential buyers based on opinions and social ties on a popular social networking platform.

Social media is one of the most popular emerging strategies today with a fundamental goal of increasing sales. According to a study, about 91% of retail brands use multiple social media channels with 81% of SMEs using at least one social platform. The global revenue of social media sales is expected to grow to Euro 39 billion in 2019 as per a report by the business analytics firm Statista. However, on social media, people are more likely to adopt a product recommended received from their acquaintances or based on product reviews.

“We already know that comments on social media affect potential buyers. We have considered the personal valuation of the adapters based on their comments. Initially, we have segregated the adopters and the influencers based on their valuation and the threshold value to become an influencer. This helped us to categorize the users and strengthen their influence on adopters. In our second model, the peers’ connections are considered to influence a user. Additionally, we considered all the users who have purchased the product earlier, as the influencers other than just the potential buyers who are considered as users highly connected in the network,” explained Prof. M K Tiwari who led the research.

The study identified the different set of users based on their level of the tendency towards the product. This helps to segregate the adopters by whom they will be getting influenced instead of using all the buyers to influence all the adopters.

Thereafter the research group targeted the influencers by offering the product either for free or at a discounted price depending on their possibility to diffuse the information and influence their neighbours effectively for revenue maximization.

This finding provides the required benefits for marketers regarding the future of advertising and targeting customers in social networks. Marketers know that following traditional methods to motivate consumers in any social network might not always be effective. If marketers motivate any informal member of social networks without their knowledge by offering free or discounted products to initiate and launch any product related information, this can then be an effective strategy for social network advertisements. Also, the study showed that iterations in the product reviews by the influencers show a sudden increase in the number of people getting influenced. Such changes are to be estimated beforehand by the company and required steps to be taken in order to stay away from the lost sales.

“Here, we aim to increase the influence on people by offering the product for free to potential buyers who are capable of influencing more people and then the product is offered at an increasing price, i.e., decreasing discount rates and increasing the revenue as well as the growth of the influence among customers’ acquaintances,” he confirmed.

Computational experiments were conducted on real-world networks representing different scenarios with varying complexities and tested the effectiveness of these algorithms.

The research work was conducted under the research project EBusiness Center of Excellence (ECO) funded by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD), Government of India under the scheme of Center for Training and Research in Frontier Areas of Science and Technology (FAST).

This work can be extended by implementing this algorithm on dynamic networks and budget and time constraints can be imposed for influencing. The results of this study shows that mixed influence model can be used to identify the potential users whom a company can target and also can decide the budget that can be spent on each category of such users based on their level of influencing others.

A future extension would be interesting by adding more social media futures such as likes and shares from sources like Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest etc.

Graphic Credit: Suman Sutradhar

Feathers in the Cap

Careers 360    India Education Diary

IIT Kharagpur has emerged among the country’s best and as the only IIT to qualify and excel in four disciplines – Architecture (1st), Engineering (4th), Law (4th) and Management (6th), taking on specialized schools in their domains.

Speaking about the feat of excelling in non-engineering categories, Director Prof. P P Chakrabarti emphasised on the uniqueness of each of these specialized disciplines within the IIT system.

“While there are specialized institutions in these subject areas, being part of IIT Kharagpur has catapulted the growth of these disciplines in a matter of a few decades due to the convergence culture of IIT Kharagpur typically focusing on research, multidisciplinary academics and overall career development of students enabling a unique symbiotic approach to excellence.”

IIT Kharagpur is leading in ‘Research and Professional Practice’ and ‘Graduate Outcome’ in the categories of Architecture, Law and Management while holding a competitive rank in Engineering.

“Our research publications and citations are extremely high domestically as evident from Scopus and SCI. However, there is a need for transforming research into industrial and consumer applications. In recent times we have undertaken several initiatives in the forms of Centres of Excellence which are focused towards technology development for industry and giving a thrust to the startup culture,” he said.

The Institute has launched centres of excellence and undertaken projects of national importance in six thrust areas which include Advanced Manufacturing, Intelligent and Smart Transportation, Affordable Healthcare, Digital Convergence, Innovative Infrastructure and Geoscience for Future of Earth with support from the government and industry. The research collaboration and impact thereof can be witnessed across various engineering and other disciplines such as management, law, social sciences, architecture etc.

Also, the multidisciplinary approach has led to specialized thrust areas in academics which is flexible and unique. The course design and curricula of the programs above deliver the country’s crème graduates leading to the best-in-class graduate outcomes.

“Focus on the integrated and growth-oriented strategy adopted by IIT Kharagpur has enabled us to sustain our top position while keeping the societal and industrial needs in mind in launching new courses and also massively using our alumni resources,” says Dean, Planning & Coordination Prof. M K Tiwari.

The Department of Architecture and Regional Planning clearly exhibits this trait with its key area of regional planning addressing the diverse regional planning needs of a country like India which are more in the lines of a subcontinent with intermittent regions within her cities, townships and villages, opines Prof. Joy Sen, Head of the department, who himself is a well-known Regional Planner.

“We focus on regional sciences, regional econometrics and regional programming which enable us to develop inclusive and innovative regional planning models,” remarks Prof. Joy Sen.

Similar is the case with the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law at IIT Kharagpur which has carved its excellence in the domain of Intellectual Property law while successfully running LLB with specialization in IP, LLM and Doctoral programs.

“I do see a lot of interest in students to take up courses like AI and Law, Energy Law, IP Management, IP and Competition Law, Law of the Sea, Information Technology Law to name a few,” says Prof. Padmavati Manchikanti, Dean of the School. “In fact, some of the thrust areas of the School, AI and Law, Biodiversity Law, Energy Law, Energy Policy and Governance, are unique in the country,” she adds.

Prof. Prabina Rajib, Dean of Vinod Gupta School of Management which has been ranked 6th following the top 5 IIMs, emphasized at the interdisciplinary elective courses in engineering, science and mathematics offered by other departments, centres and schools at IIT Kharagpur. This sharpens their interdisciplinary knowledge and capability as efficient managers.

“Our students are mostly from engineering background and their career path follows a direction more oriented towards technology management. Keeping in line with the industry needs, we have introduced many new electives in Business Analytics area and also offer electives in emerging topics like Artificial Intelligence and Business Law, Internet of Things Cyber Security, Intellectual Property Rights ,” says Prof. Prabina.

The teaching, learning and resources parameter has been affected in this year’s NIRF rank as well, acknowledges the Director. However, he indicated this has more to do with the high number of students at IIT Kharagpur which has the largest number of academic disciplines with 19 departments, 12 schools and 17 centres of excellence.

“We are further working on recruiting more faculty which will also accelerate up our research initiatives. In the past three years, more than a hundred faculty members have been inducted in the system,” he added.

For the Kgpians, by the Kgpians

Times of India   The Asian Age    India Education Diary  The Telegraph

The IIT KGP Foundation founded by the alumni of IIT Kharagpur in USA has announced international internships to be awarded to 15 students from the Institute this year at top global universities. The IIT KGP Foundation, a non-profit organization headquartered at Nebraska, would offer upto USD 3000 per student towards expenses like airfare, stay and so on.

The students will pursue their summer internship for 2019 starting at some of the top global universities including California Institute of Technology, MIT, University of Illinois-Urbana, Georgia Tech and the University of Michigan in the US; NUS and Nanyang University in Singapore, Darmstadt in Germany and at Lausanne in Switzerland.

“We are proud to foster a synergy between the excellent education at IIT KGP with the research and studies at the world’s other top universities. The IIT KGP Foundation will continue to support initiatives like this to build robust relationships between the students and premier institutions to foster the contributions that these students bring to future technological developments in their fields and beyond,” said Ron Gupta, President of the IITKGP Foundation.

This year, more than a hundred students with top CGPA applied for these internships, of which 15 were selected to receive the awards. The topics of research covered a wide array of subjects depending on the student and the host institution. The selections were made based on Cumulative Grade Point Average, project brief and the reputation of the university offering internship.

Students going to CalTech, USA will research on scientific topics of hydrogen and helium stability; while those going to National University of Singapore will concentrate on design of robotics systems and algorithmic game theory. A group of students will work with MIT, USA on potential solutions for urban brownfield site developments.

Speaking on the internships funded by the US alumni foundation, Dean Alumni Affairs at IIT Kharagpur, Prof. Subrata Chattopadhyay emphasized on the engagement of the alumni towards the overall development of the Institute. “This directly impacts the career development of the students. The IIT KGP Foundation USA has been designing programs for the alumni to support the future generations of IIT Kharagpur students. Witnessing the enthusiasm of the alumni to mentor the students we have instituted an alumni department engagement program to facilitate students placement, internship, exchange, guest talks, department funding requirements etc.,” he said.

Students welcomed the initiative stating the significance of foreign training and inadequacy of internship stipends towards meeting their travel and living costs abroad.

 

Content: with contributions from Erin Moran, Executive Director, IIT KGP Foundation USA

And then there were some more

Forbes Asia’s 2019 list of 30 Under 30 features 300 young innovators and disruptors from 24 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Listed across 10 categories, they are an ambitious yet socially conscious bunch of entrepreneurs, leaders and stars who are re-inventing their industries and driving change across this diverse region. Here is the story of the other KGPians who have made it to the coveted list and done their alma mater proud.

 

Subhadeep Mondal (2013/BTech/Biotech) and S.L. Sivareena (2015/BTech/ME), co-founders of PregBuddy, India’s first AI-enabled care continuum platform for the care of expecting mothers, have made it to Forbes Asia’s list of 30 Under 30 in the category of Healthcare & Science.

PregBuddy is India’s first peer-to-peer instant reassurance platform for expecting mothers. It provides would-be mothers personalised information throughout the entire course of their pregnancy, connecting them together based on their trimester, location, vernacular language, and medical conditions. The PregBuddy app also provides a continuum of care between the gynaecologist and the expecting patients through ‘Connected Care’ for Doctors. Its objective is to provide personalised care through health experts and doctors from pre-conception to the early years of motherhood, and help women take informed decisions about them and their child.

On Forbes Asia’s recognition of their efforts, Sivareena said, “It’s an extreme pleasure and a proud moment when the efforts of a small team create an impact which gets noticed globally. We’re now more than determined to assist millions of care receivers to stay healthy while transforming the care delivery with smarter engagement and meaningful relationship between care receivers and providers.” So far, PregBuddy has assisted over 100,000 mothers across India and has penetration into rural areas with partnered hospitals. Subhadeep said, “We’re planning to extend our services abroad, across the APAC countries later this year.”

Sivareena added, “Subhadeep and I have worked together since our college days, where we brought the spirit of business and entrepreneurship to college through events, conference and global student exchange programs.” PregBuddy will be soon expanding its services to other conditions that require repetitive care between provider and patients in order to ensure that it can transform patient-provider interactions from reactive and episodic to a relationship that is pro-active and collaborative.

 

Kalyan Babu Kuramana (2015/MSc/MA/HJB) was recognized by Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia in the category of Social Entrepreneurs. He is the Co-Founder and CTO at TAI, building an innovative EdTech venture. TAI provides a revolutionary learning solution for K-12 students that focuses on strengthening their fundamental skills, and thus helps the learning process. Through simple implementation of work sheets and world class gaming technology backed by neuroscience and AI, TAI can pinpoint the exact skill gap area of the learner and correct it.

On his entry on Forbes Asia’s 30 Under 30 list for 2019, Kalyan said, “I feel deeply humbled and grateful that what I had started as a dream to empower 21st-century students is now being recognized globally. It is truly fulfilling and satisfying to change the lives of younger people with innovation and technology.”

Kalyan has created flagship products that enable TAI to make learning fun and ensure speed, clarity and retention in every learning session and bring personalization and adaptability with self-learning algorithms. “Product and technology are my forte,” he recently told KGP Chronicle. TAI’s gamified intelligent platform teaches children maths and 40 other learning skills. The learning methodology has changed the lives of 1.5 million children worldwide and has been recognized by Barack Obama for an outstanding social venture.

Prior to TAI, Kalyan worked with Sendfast in the capacity of Technology Lead and as a Software Engineer with Myglamm and India.com. He has experience in building intelligent products and his products are used by more than one million users. “A lot of what I am today is because of IIT KGP. I can’t thank enough my professors, my fellow batch mates and everyone else at KGP for inspiring me, keeping me grounded, fearless and, most importantly, helping me think big,” said Kalyan.

 

Pavan Guntupalli (2012/BTech/EC) has been listed in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list of 2019 in the Consumer Technology and Big Money section. He is the Co-founder of Rapido, a Bike-Taxi mobile app platform to book bike rides for travelling solo. Reacting to the Forbes Asia recognition, Pavan says that he is simply “elated”.

The Bike taxi startup raised $10 million (Rs 71 crore) in a Series A funding round led by Hong Kong-based multi-strategy private investment firm Integrated Capital recently. Currently, Rapido gets 2.5 million orders a month and plans to grow to 20 million orders by the end of this year. The company is also planning to reach out to 25 cities by the end of this year. Pavan says, “We are looking to effect a social change by creating job opportunities at zero cost as we take our services not only to all big cities but also to the towns like Siliguri, Guntur, Warangal, Jaisalmar, Patiala and others where there are very little job opportunities.” Anybody with a bike can undertake Rapido services. “So students, the unemployed, the retired, even farmers, can join Rapido.”

The start-up allows users to book bike rides for solo trips via a mobile app that can be accessed in multiple languages such as Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Hindi and English. Rapido operates in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi among several other cities. There is also Rapido POOL, an on-demand ride sharing platform wherein anyone can register their bike and utilise their vacant seat by offering a ride. Rapido also provides helmets for safety.

Pavan thanked IIT Kharagpur for “inspiring” him to become an entrepreneur. “This is where I became aware of my social responsibility. We were among the finest students in the country. With a solid degree, family support, if we don’t take risks and do something for others, who will?” asked Pavan.

 

Nishant Dalmia (2014/BTech/CS/PH) made it to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia in the category of Big Money and Industry, Manufacturing and Energy for his enterprise, Cogoport, which he co-founded and which is a digital freight logistics venture.

Cogoport’s online international freight exchange platform currently connects exporter and importers on the one hand and ocean and air freight carriers on the other. It offers price discovery and booking using a data-driven technology solution to make the most cost-effective match and also provides various value-added services like live tracking and analytics about shipment and the delivery process. Last year, Cogoport secured Series-A round of funding from Accel Partners.

Nishant mentors cross-channel engineering functions at Cogoport and also oversees and leads the other business functions. In his LinkedIn profile Nishant writes, “Machines and codes, entice me! Sophisticated algorithms capable of changing lives and creating sustainable value streams, is what I live for.” Nishant is a deep thinker, humanitarian, and serial entrepreneur, constantly thinking of improving the world through technology. Nishant has worked for renowned companies like Amazon and Housing.com but he loves to create a product from scratch and take it to the masses.

“Solving real world challenges is something which always excites me, and keeps me on my toes. Currently, digitizing and streamlining the processes in the international freight industry to bring transparency and ease, is a global issue, and I am working at it as well,” said Nishant.

Like the others, Nishant is thankful for his experiences at IIT Kharagpur. “KGP, having acted like a catalyst in keeping me motivated and enhancing my cross-functional skills, has not only helped me shape myself as an entrepreneur but has also helped me sustain the drive needed to be a global leader as well,” said Nishant.