Tag: startup

Intern Hiring Startup ‘Cuvette Tech’ raised $180, 000 in seed funding round

Intern hiring startup, Cuvette Tech, founded by Atul Singhal (2020 graduate, Electrical Department, IIT KGP) and Sudhanshu Singh (2019 graduate, Electrical Department, IIT KGP) has raised $180, 000 in a seed round of funding. The investment is led by Titan Capital, Varun Alagh, co-founder and chief executive officer, Mamaearth; Harish Daiya, co-founder Lumenci and other marquee angel investors.

“A feather added to their cap! The students have proved their mettle and made us proud with their incredible performance and achievements. It has been manifested that consistent dedicated hard work, perseverance and self-belief are the key mantras for success in any walk of life”, said Prof Virendra Kumar Tewari, the Director of IIT Kharagpur. 

The Bengaluru based startup, Cuvette Tech (https://cuvette.tech/) is a platform to connect student software developers with companies on a full- time and part-time internship basis. Atul & Sudhanshu started their company right from their dorm room at RK Hall (Radha Krishnan Hall of Residence, IIT KGP).

Atul Singhal said, “First of all, we would like to extend our deep gratitude to Prof Bhaskar Bhowmick from Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship (RMSoEE) for supporting and mentoring us since our stay at campus. Additionally, we are sincerely thankful to IIT Kharagpur for providing us with the opportunities, that we would have never found anywhere else as well as for motivating us in order to understand the importance of entrepreneurship and innovation effectively. We believe that internships are the best way to connect a company and a student. Through our platform, students can do multiple internships and can get a chance to work with various companies all around the world. The learnings & exposures which a student can get through our platform are unparalleled”.  

Within 10 months of its inception, Cuvette Tech has managed to engage more than 600 companies from India, Singapore, Dubai and the USA. It has students from more than 150 engineering colleges pan India.

“We would use the funds to build our core team and develop the product. We will be working on creating an awareness about the importance of software development skills among the students and help them connect with multiple startups around the globe to get good industry exposure”, added Sudhanshu Singh.

(Inputs from Ms. Rituparna Chakraborty, Branding Executive)

Contact: Paramita Dey, Junior Assistant

Email: media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282004

 

 

 

IIT Kharagpur students have participated in a leadership talk- Second MIC Driven Activity

MoE’s Innovation Cell (MIC) has conducted a leadership talk (Second MIC Driven Activity of Quarters 3 and 4) with Dr. Anand Deshpande, the founder Chairman and Managing Director of Persistent Systems, where the postgraduate students and research scholars of IIT Kharagpur have participated enthusiastically with effective learning outcome. The discussion has been on the topic “From Ph.D. / Master’s Thesis to a Start- Up”, where Dr. Anand Deshpande has laid emphasis on promoting innovation and entrepreneurial concepts in students.

 “Nearly about 1 million students graduate every year. Among them, 6% are into Masters and among these 6% students, few venture into Research. A very few students have that huge passion for research and converting their research problem into an entrepreneurial venture”, said Prof Anil D Sahasrabudhe, Professor of Mechanical Department at IIT Guwahati, also the present Chairman of AICTE.

This session has been conducted mainly to motivate, encourage, inspire and nurture the students who have come out of Masters and Ph.D. program, make them to think about the entrepreneurship as well as to support them to work on new ideas & innovations and promote them to create startup.

 “Ph.D. training is the best for being an entrepreneur. All of you should become job creators rather than job seekers”, said Dr. Deshpande. “To become an entrepreneur, you need to think about three things: build an idea and validate it, team building and how to manage cash”.

It is true to quite an extent that students join academia (as University Professor or R&D Lab Professionals) after their Master’s and Ph.D. degree. In this regard, Dr Anand Deshpande’s inspirational lecture has made an impact on the listeners enabling them to consider entrepreneurship as their alternative career option.

The Ph.D. graduates have demonstrated their innovation skills, could go deep to analyze and solve complex problems as well as could tackle all situations with calmness. They have gained all the necessary skills and the same traits are required to become entrepreneur. A startup is a storehouse of innovation, creativity and imagination. So, the students could easily convert their research problems into an entrepreneurial venture, where they could use their knowledge based skills to design new products.

The participants from our institute have said, “In India, research scholars keep worrying about their future opportunities. In this regard, this talk has been unique in its own way to give ideas for future scope to research scholars. Overall, it has been a wonderful, mind-blowing, interactive and informative session at YouTube Channel of MIC. We have got a noble opportunity to gain vast amount of knowledge and to learn a lot from Dr. Deshpande’s effective experience and his guidance. We aspire for becoming AATMANIRBHAR by transfiguring our research work into a startup and also refrain ourselves for traversing foreign soil for further reserach”.

According to our students, this talk has given them a new perspective about research. This session has rightly motivated them to think and work with a positive mindset to design the workflow in a beneficial way and help to add on to the line of innovation.

(Inputs from Rituparna Chakraborty, Branding Executive)

Contact: Paramita Dey, Junior Assistant

Email: media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282004

IIT Kharagpur Students Startup InfinityBox Awarded Hult Prize Seed Funding

InfinityBox, an IIT Kharagpur students startup, has received the seed capital award of $100K by the Hult Prize Foundation.

It is the only Indian company that is the recipient of the seed capital award of USD 100,000 by the Hult Prize Foundation and alumni of Nexus Incubator by the US Embassy and Singapore Government-funded Young Social Entrepreneurs 2020.

InfinityBox is working towards reducing the use of less single-use plastics in the food delivery industry. The startup has partnered with two of India’s most prominent food delivery companies, Swiggy in the B2C domain, and HungerBox in the B2B domain, to support them towards sustainable operations.

The startup was also adjudged the national winners at the Innovate4SDG contest by UNDP (United Nation Development Program) Accelerator Labs India that included $5000 as a cash prize.

Founding Team:
  • Shashwat Gangwal (IIT KGP 2019)
  • Soham Chandorkar (IIT KGP 2020)
  • Keshav Godala (IIT KGP, 4th Year)
  • Shiv Kumar (BITS Pilani)

For more information visit https://www.infinityboxkgp.com/

STEP towards Innovation Drive

IIT Kharagpur has been among the firsts to build industrial parks within an academic setup, in the country. While the Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Park (STEP) was set up within and in the vicinity of the IIT Kharagpur campus, a Research Park has also been built in Kolkata to set up industrial laboratories involving researchers from IIT Kharagpur. STEP is aimed at encouraging and nurturing students to launch their startups through incubation facilities.

Recently Prof. Virendra Kumar Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur in the context of mobile application development by Indian companies, has been vocal about start-up ecosystem in technical institutions. While keeping his faith on STEP IIT Kharagpur he  can lead the initiative through seed funding and incubation facility.

Prof. Siddhartha Das, the newly appointed Managing Director of Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Park, shares his insights regarding STEP towards this end.

  • How STEP has been providing incubation support to startups? 

The Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Park at IIT Kharagpur sprawls over 20,000 sq.ft. of incubation space which is made available to startups for incubation. While fully constructed laboratory facilities are available, mobile laboratories for conducting experiments have been developed too. Further the Park is equipped with conference space for brainstorming and collaboration. 

Apart from space for R&D and operations, STEP performs few critical functions which are essential for startups:

i) Seed Funding

ii) Intellectual Property and other techno-legal requirements

iii) Business operations Advisory

i) Seed Funding – Seed funding is one of the most important aspects of a start-up and for a company incubated at STEP, the following seed loans are provided: (a) Technology Business Incubator (TBI) Seed Loan, (b) Technology Incubation and Entrepreneurship Training Society (TIETS) Seed Loan, (c) Technology Development Board (TDB) Seed Loan and (d) Technology Incubation & Development of Entrepreneurs (TIDE) Seed Loan. 

The seed loan amount ranges from ₹ 2 – 25 Lakh per start-up depending on the budget for the technology commercialization and business operations.

ii) Intellectual Property and Techno-legal requirements – Offering support in acquiring intellectual property rights is another important function of STEP. The unit collaborates with the law school of IIT Kharagpur, Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law, towards conducting seminars and workshops round the year and educating entrepreneurs in techno-legal matters. Further, the IPR office of the Institute facilitates filing of IP and registration.

iii) Marketing and Business Operations – Now, probably the most important part of a business is marketing because that is what introduces the product to the world. STEP has been seeking expertise from one of the top most business schools in India as ranked by MHRD’s NIRF – Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSOM). Not only its presence on the campus, but VGSOM is known for its innovative practices, focus on research and industrial consultancy, educational outreach, which make it just the right partner for STEP to enrich the marketing experience of the startups incubated at the Park. The faculty experts from VGSOM conduct lectures, seminars and discussion forums to train startups towards managing business operations efficiently and marketing of the products developed by them.

  • Who can apply for incubating their startup ideas under STEP?

A key factor for STEP is its inclusiveness. The unit is open to any technology-based start-up with the legal status to register and operate in India irrespective of whether they are associated with the Institute or not. It enables STEP to not only invite the 750+ faculty or 60000+ alumni worldwide or the current students, but also any Indian with the ambition to innovate new technologies. Furthermore, STEP is in the process of starting collaboration with MSMEs across the eastern region for entrepreneurship development. To promote technical advisory and networking it is also collaborating with various chambers of commerce and capital rich industries.

  • Will there be any special drive for developing mobile applications?

Our Director Prof. Virendra Kumar Tewari has affirmed that the incubation facilities at various technical institutions in India are capable of leading such drives. STEP IIT Kharagpur, indeed can emerge as a beacon because of our existing system of incubation through infrastructure, operational support and seed funding. STEP can boast of a decent record in terms of incubation. The total no. of companies incubated till date are 200 out of which 183 companies have graduated and 17 are being mentored.

In the current situation, it is quite important that useful mobile applications and services are designed and operated in India. The Director has already mentioned planning for a drive to call for submission of proposals for mobile application development which can be sponsored by the Institute. If the technologies developed are market worthy or for the B2B industry, then STEP would certainly step into the process to incubate them into startups for future use by India.

Get down to business, say IIT KGP Experts

A Market Opportunity for Indigenous Players – IIT Kharagpur Experts on Mobile App Ban. Director, Prof. Virendra Kumar Tewari is affirmative about IIT Kharagpur’s role in filling this void through sponsored projects and startups

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India on June 29 witnessed an unprecedented action in the area of mobile applications. 59 mobile applications developed in China have been banned by MEITY, Govt. of India citing prejudicial activities to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order. This move has been welcomed by several experts at IIT Kharagpur. While some are relieved with reduction in potential security threat, others view it as an opportunity for Indian applications to strengthen their market presence or even create space for start-ups for indigenous mobile applications. Director, Prof. Virendra Kumar Tewari is even affirmative about IIT Kharagpur’s role in filling this void through sponsored projects and startups.

The Security Threat

Prof. Raja Datta, Head, G.S Sanyal School of Telecommunication remarked on the potential security threat from these applications.

“We have to be cautious about the software we are using on our computational devices. Even if we are not storing financial data, some of our computerized biometric information may be inadvertently stored in these applications due to general user interface design. To avoid any further damage regarding exposure to our important data, it is advisable that installation of such applications be avoided.”

He further recommended investigations of these applications under restricted use, to study the attributes and make certain of malware functions if any, and take necessary steps to remove possible security threats. 

Business Opportunity

Talking about the market which has been created, Prof. Suman Chakraborty, Dean, Sponsored Research & Industrial Consultancy expressed his confidence in Indian technologists and scientists to meet the strong demand for similar products.

“The ban has only created a supply imbalance in the market which will attract Indian startups to feel the void. Also our technological research has reached a level wherein designing such products indigenously should not be a challenge at all. Take for example the healthcare domain; the available innovations by Indian technologists in healthcare devices and analytics can be improvised further to develop healthcare apps of highest scientific and technological standard which can replace several foreign-bred mobile  applications,” he said.

He also emphasized on the need for talents from technical institutions to focus on technology enablers and collaborate with designers to develop social media applications.

Prof. Goutam Saha, Dean, IIT Kharagpur’s IP Law School, clarified on how the market can be penetrated as the concepts do not receive IP protection.

“A specific mobile app based game can be protected but not its concept or subject area. The way forward is to proactively work on user feedback and assess user needs to launch new products. The mass market products need to upgrade features continuously and be trendy with look and feel to capture popular imagination,” he said.

Could IIT Kharagpur play a key role in filling this void?

Director, Prof. Virendra Kumar Tewari believes the start-up ecosystem at IIT Kharagpur’s Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Park can lead the initiative through seed funding and incubation facility.

“We are contemplating on calling for submission of app development projects by students which we can sponsor. With the talent at institutes like IITs who power thes strongest corporations in the digital space, this is not only a certainty but not achieving this goal should come as a surprise.” 

He further opined on the necessity of hackathons at the national level engaging talents from technical institutions towards this end.

“Last year MHRD had successfully organized several hackathons in hardware, software, rural technology etc. We have proven track records in delivering efficient and economically viable technologies. Let us seize this opportunity.  The market has only been liberated, we can say, inward, this time,” signed off Prof. Tewari.

The Govt. of India too is encouraging premier technical institutions to take benefit of this opportunity and lead the way. Live Mint reported  on June 30, Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal, Hon’ble Minister, HRD while speaking on Atmanirbhar Bharat in his address for an academic address for IIT Madras urged all to accept the high challenge and rise to the occasion.

“Don’t let the opportunity go. This will take us forward in the path of growth, . . . We don’t need them…we have the vision to do it,” the minister said adding that when the challenges are high all must rise to the occasion,” he said.

What are students saying?

A section of students at IIT Kharagpur engaged in product designing and development are excited too. TYSS Santosh, UG representative had floated an informal assignment during the lockdown period to develop various applications related to COVID-19.

“Similar assignments can be conducted to encourage students to ideate new developments, he said as part of the co-curricular program. This can also be a real-life project based learning experience for students where we can witness the transition from lab to land,” he said.

Alumni Innovate COVID-19 Health Technologies

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The cases of infections and deaths related to COVID-19 in India are increasing by leaps and bounds. While it took about 2 months to reach the first 1000 cases, it increased to 2000 just within 5 days, then with every 3 days the count has been increasing by 1000, and now the frequency of that occurrence has reduced to a day. Today the COVID+ cases have crossed 8000. Though experts concur that the lockdown has checked the spread of the disease till now to a considerable extent, the need for eHealth technologies is crucial in a country with a billion+ people under home quarantine. Four alumni starts-ups from IIT Kharagpur have developed technologies to offer assistance towards surveillance, mass-scale sanitization and automatization of  dissemination of official information related to novel coronavirus.

Surveillance

Innovaccer, a data-driven healthcare technology start-up co-founded by Abhinav Shashank and Kanav Hasija from 2010 batch, has has launched a self-assessment based app to screen for COVID-19 patients. The self-assessment test asks users to fill in a survey based on their symptoms. It also provides coronavirus-related updates to citizens in the region.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a serious challenge to current healthcare infrastructure. While our providers are tirelessly treating thousands of patients every day, we want to help them in this global health crisis by expanding their reach. To help the government, healthcare organizations and all frontline healthcare workers care as one, we are launching COVID-19 Management System to enable virtual care,” says Abhinav Shashank, CEO of Innovaccer.

Health authorities of Goa and Puducherry have tied up with Innovaccer to curb the spread of novel CoronaVirus pandemic with the Automated Self-evaluation Assessment to Identify At-Risk Patients for COVID-19.

In another such initiative, Intugine, co-founded by IIT Kharagpur alumni Harshit Shrivastava (2016 batch) and Ayush Agrawal (2018 batch), is using their flagship product ‘Mobile Number Location Tracking’ to monitor huge number of home-quarantined individuals and ensure they follow social distancing. The Kgpians claim that their location intelligence platform, which is based on cell triangulation technology, can work on SMS-based user content without installing any application, i.e. even on basic phones, which makes it easy to implement. 

The company has recently announced that this solution can enable effective crowd monitoring of quarantined cases in a least intrusive and scalable manner, on a single dashboard with a central control tower, reducing the pressure on the ground teams to visit each location and ensure adherence.

“Our logistics platform fits seamlessly in providing a solution to the coronavirus monitoring. Upon understanding it better, we quickly tweaked our platform by conducting a pilot in a handful of districts to check the feasibility,” says Ayush Agrawal.

He confirmed getting positive response as well in detecting the breaches of home quarantined cases and reaching out to appropriate authorities who can put the platform to use for surveillance.

Mass-scale Sanitisation and Sterilization

While surveillance of the population is critical, a significant section of the population engaged in essential services are required to regularly access public spaces. Alumnus Debayan Saha collaboratively developed Airlens Minus Corona, a device which may help sanitise large areas. The innovators claim that the product might be able to address the challenge by using charged water droplets which are ionised using the viral discharge.

“Alcohols (like ethanol or IPA) are known to inactivate viruses by denaturing their protein coat. But the alcohol-based hand sanitiser is useful for individuals or for sanitising surfaces at a smaller scale (home, offices, etc.) in the fight against coronavirus. However, this is insufficient in such an emergency as it is impractical to use alcohol for sanitising cities,” said Saha.

The device is designed to look like Robo Sapien (human-like) machine that operates on the mechanism of charged water droplets which are ionised using the corona discharge. The ionised water in return oxidises the viral protein reducing it to a non-harmful molecule, opined the innovators. The innovators are hoping to reach out to organisations and government bodies for large scale application.

Bot

While media is reporting on health status, government announcements related to COVID-19, people may have queries regarding the lifestyle to follow beyond social distancing and hygiene guidelines. Apollonius Voicebot developed by alumnus Souva Majumder is addressing such queries. People can record their queries on the platform denguebot.in which are answered by an AI application. The bot has integrated information provided by the World Health Organization, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of India, and My Gov platform.

COVID-19 has reaffirmed the need for technology based hygiene and healthcare, which may not fade away with the situation normalising but rather lead to a future which cause less damage from pandemic, which may not require global lockdown.

This article only shares information about technological innovations by the alumni and is neither an endorsement nor can be used as a statement of validation  for the above mentioned interventions.

If you are alumni, faculty or student of IIT Kharagpur and working in the following areas, please share your story on media@iitkgp.ac.in.

  • Personal protective equipment,
  • Surveillance,
  • Sanitization,
  • Testing kit,
  • Development of medical equipment, bots,
  • Pharmacological or non-pharmacological treatment,
  • Data analytics and AI to model epidemic patterns and disease dynamics

Mentoring Startup for Industry 4.0

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The Center of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology at IIT Kharagpur is roping in MSMEs for collaborative R&D projects and consultancy to develop resources for Industry 4.0. In a recent initiative, the Centre, which is funded by the Department of Heavy Industry of Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Government of India, has signed an MoU with a Kolkata-based startup Hemraj Infocom to promote industrial consultancy and industrial research internship for students. 

Hemraj Infocom will be the first affiliate member in the industry consortium of the Centre which is currently led by top industries as Tata Motor, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Steel, Tata Sons, BHEL, and HEC.

Prof. Surjya K Pal who is heading Centre said, “We are looking forward to more such startups joining the consortium whom we will offer mentorship in the area of Industry 4.0 applications. With Hemraj we will be mentoring them in the manufacturing applications in which our Centre has got a strong foothold. They will also have access to the facilities at our Centre both to the experts and infrastructure. We will also provide them with free training on cutting-edge industrial applications, research solutions for their typical industrial challenges such as cloud computing, real-time data processing, analysis and storage, networking and automation, real-time process monitoring.”

Students from various backgrounds including electronics and electrical communication, or mechanical or electrical engineering etc. would be able to work on problem statements shared by the startup.

Hemraj Infocom is working in combined areas of IoT, AIML, Robotics, Automation and which will prove to be revolutionary with a new industrial boom in India in the near future. 

Soham Dasgupta, CEO of Hemraj Infocom confirmed the submission of projects for mentorship in voice-enabled survey devices, predictive maintenance for motors. He is hopeful such research internships will further boost MSME culture in the region. “We are also looking for upgrading the research skills of our human resources,” said Dasgupta.

Abhishek Saha, Head, Business Development of Hemraj Infocom said, “we are enthusiastic about seeking guidance on mission-critical projects from an academic institution of repute like IIT Kharagpur which will enable us to deliver proof of concept and projects thereby by implementing niche areas of R&D in our business operations.”

The Centre has been conducting several industry-aligned workshops, short-term courses, talks by industry experts for MSMEs and capital goods sector in areas such as computer numerical controls, composite manufacturing, metallography. The programmes are also open to students from other educational institutions. For affiliate members, such training workshops will be conducted free of cost and also a huge pool of student researchers in diverse areas of Industry 4.0 would be made available to work on problem statements. 

Prof. Pal has been approaching FOSME, CII, EEPC to reach out to startups and MSMEs and connect them to the Centre’s consortium.

“It will diversify the Centre’s research goals through a different set of application-oriented industrial challenges with more tight timeline and product delivery schedule as against giant corporations which focus on broader R&D,” he remarked. More such MSMEs are in touch with the Centre for affiliated memberships, he confirmed.

The Centre aims to stimulate innovation to manufacture smart machines in the capital goods sector. This centre offers a unique platform for innovative and top-quality research focused on the industries on Specialty materials, Design and automation, Additive manufacturing, and Digital Manufacturing and Industrial Internet of Things. The centre will boost innovative interventions and collaborative research in the advanced manufacturing domain by enabling an ecosystem among Institutes of higher repute, heavy industries, and also the MSMEs and start-ups. 

IIT KGP to Drive MSME Innovations

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IIT Kharagpur is all set to build Eastern India’s first Industrial Research and Innovation Unit for MSMEs and Start-ups. The Groundbreaking Ceremony of the Industrial Research and Innovation Unit of the DHI Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology at IIT Kharagpur was held in the august presence of Shri Babul Supriyo, Hon’ble Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises on February 3, 2019.

Setting up a state-of-the-art centre for manufacturing in Eastern India was a vision of Shri Babul Supriyo which will enable our top industries to compete with the best, rejuvenate the industries which are shutting down, motivate IITians to lead hi-tech manufacturing. The Centre, which was launched in November 2017 aims to stimulate the innovation to manufacture smart machines in the capital goods sector for sustainable products having higher productivity with reduced cost.

“The challenge is to deliver quality products with high-end technologies at an affordable and competitive price. To ensure that the MSMEs and the industrial partners can do that, R&D needs to be done in a state-of-the-art way,” he remarked.

The 40000 sq.ft Industrial Research and Innovation Unit will house high-end industrial equipment such as Industry 4.0 enabled robotic welding facility, Industry scale CT scan machine, Hybrid additive manufacturing facility for industrial jobs, Robotic 3D laser scanner for structural vibration testing and many more. It will support activities such as Design, fabrication and automation of manufacturing, Digital manufacturing and Industrial IoT, Specialty materials, and Additive manufacturing.

“We have brought in people from various domains such as materials, processes, designers, AI and data sciences and also formed a consortium including industries, DHI and our board of governors to ensure sustainability of this initiative. IIT Kharagpur has decided to set up a state-of-the-art industrial manufacturing shed which will house advanced machinery for further technological development and also sample industry 4.0 factory which will become a training and production point for all manufacturers in the country. One of our goals is to invent Make in India products for India and abroad for which we will have to unleash innovations through this Innovation Centre,” said Prof. P P Chakrabarti, Director, IIT Kharagpur.

Further to these, an Innovation Lab has been built to promote the culture of innovation and open engineering facilitating MSMEs and Start-ups to avail end-to-end support from the experts including access to various state-of-the-art facilities for early prototyping of their product. Prof. Surjya K Pal, Professor-in-Charge of DHI Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology emphasized the activity of training the MSMEs to enable capacity building and technology infusion and catalyze start-ups towards innovation-based modern manufacturing. “The industry partners will table their niche problems which would be addressed through bringing innovation in manufacturing,” he said.

While it is seed funded by the Department of Heavy Industry of Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Government of India, a consortium of top industry members in the country have partnered in various activities at the Centre including Tata Sons, Tata Steel, Tata Motors, TCS, HEC Ranchi, and BHEL. Few more industrial houses have expressed interest in joining the consortium, confirmed Prof. Chakrabarti.

“Setting up of DHI Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology with the state-of-the-art facilities is a great step in advancing the research and technology development in manufacturing when the whole world is focusing on Industry 4.0. The centre has been set up at the most appropriate time and I believe that the expertise that is available at IIT Kharagpur will certainly lead to a new direction with a clear paradigm shift,” said Deputy Director of IIT Kharagpur, Prof. S K Bhattacharyya.

The Centre currently involves faculty experts from the departments of Mechanical Engineering, Industrial and Systems Engineering, Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering and Metallurgy and Materials Engineering. Expertise will also be sought from various other specialized units at IIT Kharagpur at a later stage to facilitate the start-ups and MSMEs confirmed Prof. Pal.

The total cost of the project is Rs. 65.19 crore. The Ministry has granted initial funding of Rs. 47.62 crore. Additional funding of Rs. 17.57 crore is being raised from the industrial partners through projects. IIT Kharagpur has already provided land, technological and infrastructural support to the extent of Rs. 25 crore.

The Centre will also launch short-term courses on Advanced welding methods, Additive manufacturing, and Industry 4.0. The Centre is providing high-value fellowship to the doctoral scholars working on those topics.

Photo Credit: Arnab Moitra