TN college wins govt-backed innovation design contest; programme has incubated 20 startups

Students of SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Tamil Nadu won the chairman award for their inkless printing technology at the 2018 edition of The India Innovation Challenge Design Contest (IICDC), a national design competition for engineering students, announced recently.

A. P. Shah Institute of Technology from Maharashtra was the first runner-up for their innovation on solar energy harvesting for wireless sensor node and Sri Manakula Vinayagar Engineering College from Puducherry was the second runner-up for their project on mustard seed processor machine.

The programme has so far incubated 20 startups and filed over 150 patents.

The contest is run by Texas Instruments India in collaboration with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the department of science and technology (DST) and the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB).

The finalists get an opportunity to take their startup idea from the lab to the market. The students receive a seed funding of Rs 4.94 crore from DST, incubation at the NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, the innovation and entrepreneurship hub at IIMB, and technical mentorship along with access to tools, from Texas Instruments. ,

“IICDC’s vision is to give students an opportunity to be innovators and entrepreneurs, launching path-breaking technology products and solving tough, real-world challenges,” Sanjay Srivastava, director, Texas Instruments India university programme, said.

Over 26,000 students from 1,760 colleges participated in IICDC in 2018. The programme has received over 10,000 ideas, a press release said. Over 90% of the participants were from tier-II and tier-III towns.

“We also want to support innovation that can make an impact on the ground, tackling social, economic and environmental challenges,” Anita Gupta, associate head, DST, said. “IICDC helps strengthen the innovation ecosystem by providing an opportunity for students to develop creative solutions for real-world problems. Our seed funding to the winning teams aims to bring the best of these ideas to life.”