TCS, IIT Kharagpur to Setup Advanced Research Center Focusing Digital Health, Robotics and Intelligent Systems

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur) have partnered to establish an Advanced Research Center focused on digital health, robotics, and intelligent systems. The center is located in the IIT Kharagpur Research Park in New Town, Kolkata.

The center will house three labs specializing in Sensing and Communications, Edge Computing and Analytics, and Robotics and Visual Computing.

Over 150 TCS scientists will work on cutting-edge projects, leveraging edge computing, embedded systems, and Al.

The center will also feature a customer experience center where TCS clients from various industries can gain insights into original research concepts.

Additionally, workshops will be held to foster collaboration between TCS scientists, industry experts, and IIT Kharagpur faculty to solve industry problems.

This partnership aims to drive innovation and address some of the most pressing challenges in healthcare and automation.

Dr Harrick Vin, Chief Technology Officer, TCS, said: “TCS is transforming the way in which industry has traditionally engaged with elite institutes of research and learning. One of our focus areas is to co-locate our research and innovation labs in academic institutions to enable a more efficient exchange of knowledge and talent. We initiated this journey with our move into the IIT Madras Research Park in Chennai a few years back. The establishment of our research and innovation lab at the IIT Kharagpur Research Park is the next step of this strategic journey. At IIT KGP, we are funding several research programs; co-innovating with them will lead to vastly improved outcomes for both parties.”

Professor Virendra Kumar Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur, said: “The Advanced Research Center will strengthen our strategic collaboration with TCS, underscored by their presence in the newly established IIT KGP Research Park, Kolkata. This partnership represents a significant leap forward in harnessing cutting-edge technologies to address some of the most pressing challenges in healthcare and automation. By combining IIT Kharagpur’s world-class research capabilities with TCS’s industry-leading expertise, we aim to drive transformative innovations that can enhance quality of life, improve healthcare delivery, and contribute to the growing field of intelligent systems. This center will not only foster groundbreaking research but also create opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations, empowering the next generation of technologists and researchers to shape the future.”

Besides this research center, TCS has also set up a research and innovation lab at the IIT Madras Research Park in Chennai. And this lab too focuses on areas like digital health, robotics, and intelligent systems.

TCS has also collaborated with IIT Bombay on various research projects, particularly in the fields of data science and artificial intelligence.

Ericsson and IIT Kharagpur Partner for Joint Research in AI and Edge Compute

Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) and Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur announced a long-term co-operation for joint research in the area of AI, Compute and Radio.

As part of this collaboration, two milestone agreements were inked between both the organizations which will allow researchers from both organizations to collaborate towards developing novel AI and distributed compute technology towards 6G research.

A symposium on Radio and Network research was organized at GS Sanyal School of Telecommunications (GSSST) where leaders from Ericsson Research and IIT Kharagpur participated to discuss the developments and advancements for the future of networks and communication.

AI and Compute Research is instrumental to Ericsson’s 6G networks as the compute offload needs to be managed dynamically at edge and the policies would primarily be driven by AI. These themes of research are well aligned with IIT Kharagpur and both organizations view this partnership as a way to push the boundaries of fundamental and applied research in the Radio domain.

Virendra Kumar Tewari, Director of IIT Kharagpur, says: “In the commitment towards Digital India and making India the hub of technological innovation, this collaboration with Ericsson will be effective for next-generation technology significantly. 6G networks integrated with artificial intelligence will enable AI-powered applications to run faster and more efficiently. In the 6G era, IIT Kharagpur aims to contribute to Radio Access Technology and Network, Core Network, RF & Device Technologies, VLSI Design, Neuromorphic Signal Processing, Services and Applications. The institute also looks forward to participate in Telecommunications Standardization Process, Developing Test Beds, Prototype Development and Commercialization along with training and manpower development. This collaborative research partnership in fundamental areas as well as translational research will be transformational for our Future Network Platforms.”

Magnus Frodigh, Head of Ericsson Research, says: “This collaboration strengthens our R&D commitments in India and is pivotal to Radio, Compute and AI research. We are excited to partner with IIT Kharagpur and look forward to collaborative research in fundamental areas as well as translational research for our Future Network Platforms”. Dr Frodigh also presented Ericsson’s vision on 6G which aims to blend the physical and digital worlds enabling us to improve the quality of life by incorporating widespread Sensor-based communications between humans and machines through digital twins.

Nitin Bansal, Managing Director of Ericsson India, says: “Ericsson is well poised to lead 6G innovation and we are making significant R&D investments in India in line with our commitment to the country. Given our 5G and technology leadership, our research initiatives are geared to provide affordable network platforms for ubiquitous connectivity all across the country”.

The Speakers and Panellists of the Conference included Prof. Suvra Sekhar Das (Head, GSSST), Prof. Debarati Sen, Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti, Prof. Soumyajit Dey and many other faculty members from IIT Kharagpur; Dr Magnus Frodigh, Head of Ericsson Research, Dr Mikael Hook, Head of Radio Research and Dr Mikael Prytz , Head of Network Research.

Some of the key initiatives finalized by both the organizations include: Compute offload and Resource Optimization at edge compute: The project aims to explore resource optimization, dynamic observability and sustainable distributed and Edge computing technologies.

RL based Beamforming for JCAS: Safe, Causal, and Verifiable: The project aims to explore causal AI methods for joint communication and sensing (JCAS).

Vedanta Aluminium with IIT Kharagpur Develop Innovative Breakthrough, Gets Patent

Vedanta Aluminium patents innovative breakthrough in bauxite refining process

Developed in collaboration with IIT Kharagpur, the innovative process will enhance resource efficiency and curb energy consumption

Vedanta Aluminium, the largest aluminium producer in India, has announced the development of a groundbreaking process to significantly reduce the generation of bauxite residue, commonly known as red mud in the alumina refining process. The process reduces bauxite residue by a remarkable 30% by eliminating iron values while simultaneously recovering a higher alumina yield, reducing the total organic content from bauxite during the alumina refining. The process significantly enhances resource efficiency and curbs energy consumption during refining.

The research project was led by the company’s Research & Development (R&D) department in collaboration with the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT KGP), with special support from the Lanjigarh, Odisha unit, home to Vedanta’s world-class alumina refinery. This cutting-edge development will enhance the company’s operational excellence and have a sustainable impact on the global aluminium industry.

Bauxite is the primary ore for aluminium, and it undergoes an intermediate refining stage, known as the Bayer process, to produce alumina, which is then subjected to electrolysis to produce aluminium. This refining process generates bauxite residue as a by-product. To produce 1 kg of aluminium, it requires 2 kg of alumina, which consumes 6 kg of bauxite, leaving behind 4 kg of bauxite residue.

Managing this voluminous by-product sustainably has been a long-standing industry challenge. Vedanta Aluminium is actively engaged in minimising bauxite residue and exploring avenues to extract value from it. The company has developed a revolutionary process, which has been successfully validated in the laboratory and patented. Presently, the company is focusing on establishing a pilot plant to implement and assess the process, along with determining its potential advantages.

On the breakthrough, Mr. GG Pal, Dy. CEO – Alumina Business, Vedanta Ltd., said, “At Vedanta Aluminium, operational efficiency is of paramount importance for us in achieving sustainability. Toward this goal, we are aggressively focusing on our in-house R&D initiatives to drive tech-led innovative solutions to address existing industry problems.”

Sharing his thoughts on the development, Dr. Amit Chatterjee, Chief Research & Development Officer, Aluminium Business, Vedanta Ltd., said, “We look forward to implementing our groundbreaking process in bauxite residue management in our refinery operations. This is a significant milestone that will offer a pathway to enhanced resource efficiency and energy conservation and contribute towards reshaping the global aluminium industry.”

Dr. Chenna Rao Borra, Assistant Professor, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, IIT Kharagpur said, “Vedanta Aluminium’s dedication to R&D for sustainability goals is truly inspiring. The reduction of bauxite residue has been one of the key challenges for the aluminium industry, requiring significant technological advancements. The process, developed through the collaborative efforts of IIT Kharagpur and the company, will not only significantly improve bauxite residue management but also contribute to reducing the carbon footprint in the process.”

Vedanta Aluminium is the first company in the country to extract the entire volume of water from bauxite residue slurry and recycle it back into operational use, achieving Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) and demonstrating its commitment to water conservation. The remaining bauxite residue is densely packed in dried form and stored in a specially constructed and scientifically managed concretized area called the Bauxite Residue Reservoir. This containment method prevents bauxite residue from inadvertently leaching into the groundwater. For this processing purpose, the company was the first in the country to establish a Bauxite Residue Processing Plant. With the new method implementation, this residue generation will be reduced further.

Additionally, Vedanta Aluminium is actively collaborating with research institutes to develop innovative technologies for the utilization of bauxite residue. These technologies include the beneficiation of bauxite residue to enrich Rare Earth Elements (REEs), the recovery of alumina and iron values, and processes for extracting and separating titanium and REEs like Scandium. This effort is crucial because bauxite residue houses valuable metals, including iron, alumina, REEs, and titanium dioxide.

Vedanta Aluminium, a business of Vedanta Limited, is India’s largest producer of aluminium, manufacturing more than half of India’s aluminium i.e., 2.29 million tonnes in FY23. It is a leader in value-added aluminium products that find critical applications in core industries. Vedanta Aluminium ranks 2nd in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) 2022 world rankings for aluminium industry, a reflection of its sustainable development practices. With its world-class aluminium smelters, alumina refinery and power plants in India, the company fulfils its mission of spurring emerging applications of aluminium as the ‘Metal of the Future’ for a greener tomorrow.

Petascale Supercomputer PARAM Shakti at IIT Kharagpur Dedicated to the Nation

"PARAM Shakti", a Petascale Supercomputer " at IIT Kharagpur, has been dedicated to the nation under Indian government's National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) - a joint initiative of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Department of Science and Technology (DST). Under NSM, India aims to expand and develop the supercomputing capacity by manufacturing its own supercomputers in the country.

Petascale computing refers to computing systems capable of calculating at least 10¹⁵ floating point operations per second (1 petaFLOPS). Petascale computing allowed faster processing of traditional supercomputer applications. The first system to reach this milestone was the IBM Roadrunner in 2008.

The PARAM Shakti facility is an outcome of MoU signed between IIT Kharagpur and CDAC in March 2019, according to which this state-of the art Supercomputing Facility with 17680 CPU cores along with 44 GPUs has been established now.

The supercomputer was inaugurated yesterday (March 27, 2022) by the Governor, of West Bengal in the gracious presence of Prof V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur; Dr. Sivaji Chadaram, Director, DST and Col A.K Nath (Retd), Director General and Executive Director, CDAC.

PARAM Shakti supercomputing facility would accelerate the research and development activities in multidisciplinary domains of computational and data sciences as it provides large-scale computing power to the user community of IIT Kharagpur and neighbouring academic and R&D institutes.

This facility has pioneered in using RDHX based efficient cooling system to obtain a high power usage effectiveness. This system has been tested extensively by both IIT Kharagpur and CDAC for commercial, open-source and in-house software pertaining to diversified applications.

In early this month, an another indigenous Petascale Supercomputer “PARAM Ganga” was established at IIT Roorkee.

Earlier in 2020, the government has announced a 100 Artificial Intelligence (AI) PetaFlops supercomputing system, PARAM Siddhi – AI, created and installed in C-DAC facility by NVIDIA. 

In October 2020, it was reported that India's total network of Superconputing performance is yet to reach 16 Petaflops (PF), is less than of Piz Daint, a Switzerland -based supercomputer , which has performance power of 27.1 Petaflops (PF) [theoretical peak performance] and ranked 21st in TOP500 ranking of supercomputers until last November.

IIT Kharagpur has also established the Centre for Computational and Data Science with a mandate to train the researchers in Supercomputer accelerated R&D. The new high-performance computational facility would aid researchers to solve large-scale problems of different fields of Science and Engineering.

Some of the identified focus areas in which this supercomputing based research will be of great value addition are: Computational Fluid Dynamics, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, Climate Change & Digital Earth, Computational Biology, Cryptography & Security, Smart Infrastructure & Sustainable Cities, Smart Materials etc.

Furthermore, NSM has sponsored a number of application research projects using this Supercomputing facility involving researchers for IIT Kharagpur and other Indian institutes and industries.

Bollywood Actor Pankaj Tripathi Invests in Agri-Tech Startup Krishi Network

Left to right- Karan Chawla, Ashish Mishra, Pankaj Tripathi, Siddhant Bhomia

The company also recently announced that it has onboarded Pankaj Tripathi as their brand ambassador

Agritech platform Krishi Network has announced that it has on boarded super-star, Pankaj Tripathi, as an investor and brand ambassador. The association with the actor marks the startup’s efforts to reach out to the masses and help connect with farmers at the grassroot level. Pankaj’s background as a farmer resonates with the startup’s vision to enable farmers to improve profits by providing them instant answers to their questions for making critical farm decisions.

“Coming from a farmer background, I have always believed in supporting initiatives that help farmers with access to information to grow their business. Back in my days as a farmer, genuine and correct information always used to be a concern, and seeing how Krishi Network is supporting farmers is commendable,” said Pankaj Tripathi.

Founded by IIT Kharagpur alumni - Ashish Mishra and Siddhant Bhomia, Krishi Network leverages the growing rural internet penetration to create a platform that eases information accessibility for farmers and enables them to generate higher profits from their land. Providing a mix of online and offline support, the company also has on boarded agri brands, agri-input merchants, and other stakeholders in the agriculture supply chain. Krishi Network app is currently available in Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, and English, and is planned to be launched in other languages soon.

Commenting on the announcement, Ashish Mishra, Founder, Krishi Network, said, “We started Krishi Network with a vision to transform Indian agriculture by enabling farmers to adopt change with confidence. We are growing their horizon by reliably connecting them to experts and other agri-businesses beyond their local area. We are delighted with the trust instilled in us and we will work relentlessly to help solve the biggest challenge ailing Indian farmers’ growth.”

Krishi Network has also previously raised funds from prominent angels, namely – Sanjiv Rangrass (ITC), Sunil Khairnar (Indigram labs), Venkat Tadanki (Anvaya ventures), Rushank Vora (ICICI ventures), Aneesh Reddy (Capillary), Abhishek Goyal (Tracxn), Agam Khare (Absolute Foods), Suraj Saharan (Delhivery), Rohit Razdan (ClearTax), and Kanav Hasija (Innovaccer), amongst others. The fresh funds will be used to expand their AI-based technology platform across India and grow rapidly.

“Farmers are real entrepreneurs and they manage a complex business. Krishi Network is an engine that is supported by an engaged community of farmers. This instantly convinced me that the team at Krishi Network led by Ashish & Siddhant will change the landscape for farmers,” said Sanjiv Rangrass (Group Head - R&D, Sustainability at ITC), one of the angel investors.

The company is currently connected with 30 lakh farmers and is planning to grow its network further. The company also offers ‘15-minute answers’ for questions around any agricultural service, which is made possible through 8000+ experts registered on their platform. Krishi Network has seen solid organic support from stakeholders due to the opportunity to connect with farmers. It also benefits the whole agri-ecosystem and leads to frictionless two-way communication access to farmers.

Software Start-up Created by IIT Kharagpur Students Gets Funded at India Innovation Championship (IIC-2021) Hosted by Chitkara University

Chitkara University recently conducted the grand finale of the India Innovation Challenge - 2021 - one of the largest funding fest and University driven platforms for upcoming start-ups. With a mission to promote novel and practical innovations, India Innovation Championship witnessed record participation by teams from across the nation and abroad.

Chitkara University - India Innovation Challenge - 2021

The Championship is open to innovators, entrepreneurs, designers, thinkers, students, engineers, scientists, coders, trainers, academicians from any background. Since its launch in October 2020, the India Innovation Challenge - 2021 received a record 460 applications from the progressive sectors ranging from fin-tech, agri-tech, ed-tech, waste management solutions to the health sector. Only 23 start-ups qualified for the stringent screening and were allowed to Pitch and Present their ideas to a panel of 10.

Amongst the four start-ups that made it to the finals of IIC-2021, the start-up created by IIT Kharagpur final year students, Tushar Singla, Mann Goel, Anuprava & Shubham, eSaathi, attracted investment and special mention.

eSaathi is a software-based UI that aims to bridge the gap between new smartphone users and apps, which have become an essential part post-pandemic lifestyle.

As shared by founders, their eureka moment came when they came across the fact that with nation-wide adoption of digitization for payment related tasks, especially during the pandemic, the instances of frauds had also skyrocketed (especially for new smartphone users). They were quick to identify an opportunity to leverage technology to help the users, and thus eSaathi was born.

eSAATHI provides users with guided audio-visual assistance, which helps them navigate all the apps step-by-step, thus augmenting a real human being.

eSAATHI software has been designed to integrate itself with the partner companies application element ID, thus ensuring a seamless and high-quality guided experience. Once integrated, the user receives guidance to navigate through ones phone, from unlocking the phone to making the payment or updating information.

Curated by Chitkara University Centre for entrepreneurship and education development-CEED- & coached by Orbit Future Academy, and backed by seasoned angel investors, VC partners SucSeed Indovation Fund (Hyderabad) & Modular Capital, accelerator partner 100 Watts (Pune), industry bodies like FICCI & MeitY start-up hub, the Government of Himachal Pradesh, Chitkara Universitys Research and Innovation Network (CURIN) and Chitkara University NEW Gen-IEDC, the challenge was curated to drive entrepreneurship and accelerate promising Research, Innovation, Demonstration and Development (RID&D) in technology, across India.

The India Innovation Championship (IIC) - 2021 grand finale witnessed the raising of the fund by the start-ups including Pacify Medical Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (SINE - IIT Bombay), 3RUrban Solutions India Pvt. Ltd. (Pune based start-up and incubated by Chitkara Innovation Incubator), and, This life matters Pvt. Ltd. (the start-up is offering a dairy-free option and is better for vegans and lactose-intolerant).

Other notable innovations and start-ups which garnered particular attention from the judges and were adjudged as having the potential to raise funding in the future included start-ups from reputed institutes like the University of Florida, Chitkara Innovation Incubator, and locations like Bengaluru, New Delhi, and Tamil Nadu.

Chitkara University and a panel of investors from Orbit Future Academy made 50 lacs rupees on spot investments to start-ups from across the cities and incubators from India. Govt. grants up to 20 lac rupees for prototype development & product commercialization were also awarded by the panel of jury members to star-ups from India and abroad.

The IIC 2021 finalists included participating teams from institutions of national and international reputation including, IIT Mumbai, IIT Kharagpur, Panjab University, Chitkara University, IIT Patna, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (Kashmir), Kongu Engineering College (Tamil Nadu), Pimpri Chinchwad College of Engineering (Pune), University of Florida-USA, SR University (Warangal), North Eastern Regional Institute of Science and Technology (Itanagar), and start-ups from Bengaluru & Indore.

Mr. Nalin Singh, CEO & Co-founder Orbit Future Academy, Indonesia, applauding Chitkara Universitys efforts to promote entrepreneurship shared, "Chitkara University has made many contributions developing a promising entrepreneurial ecosystem in India especially in the fin-tech, agri-tech, med-tech, and ed-tech space."

Dr. Madhu Chitkara, Pro-Chancellor, Chitkara University, while applauding the winners, participants, event organizers, shared that, "Chitkara University has a pan-India vision to support entrepreneurship & innovation while acknowledging others efforts & creativity. We congratulate eSaathi for offering a tech solution to one of the most pressing post-pandemic tech issues, i.e., the digital divide and digital inclusion. This gives me immense pleasure to share that as an outcome of our unwavering and relentless focus on promoting 'entrepreneurship for a greater social good', Chitkara University has emerged as a preferred institution for the start-ups from across the nation to seek incubation and funding opportunities."

About eSaathi

Created by IIT Kharagpur final year students, Tushar Singla, Mann Goel, Anuprava & Shubham, eSaathi, the start-up that attracted investment during the IIC-2021, is a software-based UI that aims to bridge the gap between new smartphone users and apps which have become an essential part post-pandemic lifestyle.

eSAATHI provides smartphone users with guided audio-visual assistance, which helps them navigate all the apps step-by-step, thus augmenting a real human being.

About Chitkara University

Chitkara University, situated near Chandigarh, has emerged as the most vibrant and high-ranking University in North India. With another campus in Himachal Pradesh, the university offers courses in Engineering & Technology, Business, Planning & Architecture, Art & Design, Mass Communication, Sales & Marketing, Hospitality Management, Pharmacy, Health Sciences, and Education. With state-of-the-art infrastructure, scientifically driven pedagogy, and strong industry collaborations, Chitkara University not only attracts the most exemplary students from across the nation but, with its seamless placement support, is also able to help them carve high growth careers.

Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur Proudly Presents Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) 2021

GES, ECell IIT Kharagpur’s annual mega flagship event, is the biggest Inter-Collegiate Corporate Summit in India.

 
A confluence of Academicians, Venture Capitalists, Angel Investors, New Age Entrepreneurs, Industry Experts, and Students, GES is Entrepreneurship Cell IIT Kharagpur’s unique platform where people share their entrepreneurial endeavors and experiences, and pledge to take entrepreneurship to greater scales.
 
In the 15th edition of GES, ECell rejuvenates the resilience of entrepreneurs who have endured and braved their way out of tough situations. Starting on the 25^th of February, GES 2021 is a 4-day online conglomeration of Keynote Sessions, Fireside Chats, Workshops, Competitions, Networking Sessions & Intern Fair. Starting with the Keynote Session by Dr. V.K. Saraswat (Padma Bhushan, Member of Niti Aayog, Former Director General, DRDO), and Mr. Kiran Mani (Managing Director, Google), GES 2021 consists of insightful keynote sessions by ​Hon'ble Minister of Women & Child Development and Textiles, Smt. Smriti Irani, Dr. Krishnamurthy Subramanian (Chief Economic Advisor to Govt. of India), Shiv Khera (Renowned Author and motivational speaker), Kevin Goldsmith (CTO, Anaconda), Larry Kim (CEO, MobileMonkey) Workshops by Pawan Kr. Rai (founder, Finshots), Shravan Tickoo (Lead Product Manager, Byju’s), Tarry Singh (Co-founder, CEO & AI Researcher at deepkapha.ai), and Rajesh Chakraborty (Academic Director at MAGES Emerging Tech) on domains like Finance, Marketing, Product Development, Data Science and Analytics are being organized too. GES also consists of numerous Competitions, Hackathons & Quizzes that will give participants a knack for solving real-life problems. 

Join us at GES 2021 to win exciting prizes, interact with leaders of the Startup Ecosystem and build an enterprising, self-reliant India. 
 
The previous editions of the summit witnessed startup enthusiasts from all over the nation and were graced by the eminent presence of Mr. Sundar Pichai (CEO, Google, and Alphabet), Mr. Sam Pitroda (Pioneer of Indian Telecom Revolution), Mr. Ritesh Aggarwal (Founder, OYO), Mr. Rahul Jaimini (Cofounder, Swiggy), Mr. Amod Malviya (Co-Founder, Udaan), Mr. Navin Gurnaney (CEO, Starbucks India) and many more. 
 
As explained by Alok Kumar and Satvik Bansal, Event heads at ECell, IIT Kharagpur, “The year 2020 has proved to be a time of fundamental transition for the startup ecosystems across the world. But, 2021 will be a year for rejuvenating resilience and embracing the new normal. ​GES 2021 - A Festival of Fortitude is an attempt to help young entrepreneurs overcome the fear of failure and embrace risk in these unprecedented times.” 
 
A sea of opportunities lies ahead for you, so join us to rejuvenate resilience, and leave with a stronger ability to overcome adversity.
 
Register now! Hurry up!
 
Register on our website ​https://reg-ges.ecell-iitkgp.org/register/

GES 2021 is a completely online event and will be organized on Airmeet.

By Adding Cloud Communication in Welding Process, IIT KGP with TCS Develop Novel Industry 4.0 Tech for Manufacturing Sector

IIT Kharagpur has developed novel Industry 4.0 technology for remotely controlled factory operations and real-time quality correction during industrial production, jointly with TCS to set a new trend in India’s advanced manufacturing sector.

At the time of pandemic when staffing has restrictions due to the hygiene and social distancing norms, cloud infrastructure, remote and real-time operations systems hold the key to maintain effective industrial operations. But the benefits of controlled operations have a bigger impact especially in the context of Atma Nirbhar Bharat in delivering quality output at low costs. The present innovation upgraded the industrial process of friction stir welding to a multi-sensory system of Industry 4.0. It has not only set the course for remotely controlled operations in the Indian industrial sector but has also enabled real-time quality check and correction during the production process. This will make possible for industrial houses to achieve standardized quality goals throughout the production process and reduce rejection hence lowering the cost of production.

Emphasizing on the need for such technologies to achieve the ‘Make in India’ goal, the Director Prof. Virendra K Tewari remarked, “While we are aiming to boost indigenous production and exports, our primary goal should be the quality output with minimum disruptions. Be it consumers in India or abroad, these are the two basic needs our industrial sector, which we must address for procuring orders in large volumes. At IIT Kharagpur’s Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology, we have set our target to bring to the forefront indigenously developed industry 4.0 technologies to support our industrial sector to achieve this goal.”

The innovative technology developed by Prof. Surjya K Pal, Professor in-charge at the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology in association with TCS will acquire real-time information about the welding process through multiple sensors and enable online control of weld quality by means of cloud-based communication with the friction stir welding machine. 

Welding is at the heart of any industrial operations. If we can improve the weld quality in real-time during batch production we can reduce rejections in post production sample checks,” opined Prof. Pal. Explaining the new technology, he said, “Our multiple sensor process involves various signal processing and machine learning techniques to predict the ultimate tensile strength of the weld joint is fabricated. This technology is connected with a vast experimental knowledge base to conform to a standard system and prediction of the weld joint strength. Any defect identified during the monitoring procedure is corrected in real-time by sending modified parameters to the machine thus ensuring standardized quality of the process.

The concept of this technology can further be evolved for real-time control of other industrial processes and such work will be carried at the Centre with other industrial partners soon, affirmed Prof. Pal.

The Industry partner TCS views such an innovation has helped to give a direction as an enabler of technology based transformations in the country, especially in overcoming challenges called out by the pandemic. “The remote friction stir welding machine quality control via multi-sensor fusion developed by Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Advanced Manufacturing Technology at IIT Kharagpur is a case in point,” said K Ananth Krishnan, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. According to him, “The Embedded Systems & Robotics, IoT and ICME platform teams from TCS Research and Innovation are working closely with IIT Kharagpur’s CoE towards AI-driven prediction/control of weld strength using a scalable and robust platform. Academic partnerships are an important part of TCS Research and TCS Co Innovation Network (TCS CoIN) in creating real world solutions with scientific rigour.”

IIT Kharagpur Builds Accurate COVID Test Machine 'COVIRAP' that Makes Testing Costs Mere ₹500 ; Gets ICMR Validation

• IIT Kharagpur Technological Innovation will go on Impacting Lives in Rural India Comments Education Minister
• IIT Kharagpur Innovation has made COVID Testing Affordable, which may be Reduced Further through Government Intervention: Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank
• NICED Director Speaks for Rapid Commercial Scale up of the Innovation for Helping Marginal People

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has successfully validated ‘COVIRAP,’ the diagnostic machine evolved by the IIT Kharagpur researchers, for its efficacy in COVID-19 detection. Various commercial units have already approached the Institute for technology licensing to enable a rapid reach of this innovation to the common people across the State. 

The portable rapid diagnostic Covid test developed by IIT Kharagpur | Pic Credit - ThePrint

After rigorous testing with the patient samples by an authorized ICMR laboratory, adhering to their strict guidelines, ICMR has now provided green signal to certification for this COVID-19 Diagnostic Test. This test has been designed to be fairly easy to conduct and it is quite affordable as well which may produce results in a custom-developed mobile phone application within an hour. 

Addressing a Virtual Press Conference today to announce this major development in the nation’s fight against COVID-19, the Union Minister of Education Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank said, “I am glad the researchers from IIT Kharagpur have achieved the goal of Atmanirbhar Bharat through this medical technology innovation. This would go on impacting the lives of many in rural India as the device is portable and can be operated on a very low energy supply. Minimally trained rural youth can operate this device.” 

The minister added that the innovation has made “high-quality and accurate COVID testing affordable for the common people with a testing cost of around ₹ 500/- which can further be reduced through government intervention.” 

He said, “As informed by IIT Kharagpur, this machine can be developed at a cost of less than ₹ 10,000/- with minimal infrastructural requirement making the technology affordable to common people. The testing process in this new machine is completed within an hour.” Dr Pokhriyal congratulated Prof. V.K. Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur and the research team led by Prof. Suman Chakraborty and Dr. Arindam Mondal for this path-breaking innovation taking molecular diagnostics from high-end labs to the field.

The project received financial support from the Institute in late April 2020 as Prof. Tewari decided to establish a dedicated fund to support COVID-19 related research and product development as per an initiative by the Union Ministry of Education following the vision of Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, the Minister.

Speaking about this test, Prof. V. K. Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur, said, “This is indeed one of the greatest contributions in the history of medical science, particularly in the area of virology, and is well set to replace PCR-based tests to a large extent.”

It is to be mentioned that the subsequent financial support to this project was provided by the IIT Foundation, USA, to meet the various expenses in the clinical testing phase. Partial financial support has also been provided from the Common Research and Technology Development Hub on Affordable Healthcare, established by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Government of India, at IIT Kharagpur.

Dr. Shanta Dutta, Director, ICMR-NICED while appreciating the efforts of the fellow researchers stated, “While overseeing the testing and validation, I was very impressed with the portable low-cost machine unit that can truly be a game-changer for COVID-19 diagnostics at peripheral laboratories with the support of unskilled human resources as operators. This now needs a rapid commercial scale-up to cater to the needs of the underserved population. ICMR-NICED will be pleased to facilitate support for further improvisations in the method towards even superior performance.”

Elaborating on the validation process of ‘COVIRAP’ Diagnostic Test, Dr. Mamta Chawla Sarkar, an internationally acclaimed Virologist who oversaw the patient trials on behalf of ICMR-National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) said, “A detailed scrutiny of the testing results has clearly shown that this assay holds the capability of detecting extremely low levels of viral loads that any other method based on similar principles of testing, even those from the most celebrated research groups across the world, could not come up with so far. In practice, this means that very early stages of infection can be detected, thereby isolating the patient and arresting the uncontrolled spread of infection in the community via asymptomatic patients.”

This new testing method implements a highly reliable and accurate molecular diagnostic procedure that can be conducted in an ultra-low-cost portable device unit developed by the research team of IIT Kharagpur. The test results are rendered via a custom-made mobile application for dissemination without requiring manual interpretation.

This novel diagnostic platform, developed by the team of researchers is led by Prof. Suman Chakraborty, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur, and Dr. Arindam Mondal, Assistant Professor, School of Bio-Science, IIT Kharagpur. This diagnostic device has been subjected to rigorous testing protocols as per the ICMR guidelines, at ICMR-NICED, an Institute authorized by ICMR. The tests conducted there have revealed that the results from this new assay are of standards comparable to the celebrated RT-PCR tests, with a remarkably high level of specificity and sensitivity, the two common parameters used as indicators of efficacy of any diagnostic test.

ICMR-NICED has further certified the test to be extremely user-friendly. Notably, the number of tests per one-hour batch in a single machine unit can be further increased for much higher limits, for the purpose of testing on a mass scale.

Elaborating on the test, Prof. Suman Chakraborty, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering Department, IIT Kharagpur, said, “The patented machine unit has not only been proven to be robust during the patient sample testing but has also demonstrated to be extremely flexible and generic. This means that other than COVID-19 testing, many other tests, falling under the category of ‘isothermal nucleic acid-based tests’ (INAT), can be performed in the same machine. In other words, Influenza, Malaria, Dengue, Japanese encephalitis, Tuberculosis and many other infectious, as well as vector-borne diseases, can be tested using the same machine. This will virtually minimize the need for thermal cyclers or real-time PCR machines, without sacrificing the expected high standards of a molecular diagnostic test.” He added “Today, it is COVID-19; yesterday, it was Leprosy and Tuberculosis; tomorrow, it will be something else. This technology is all set to create a revolution in the rapid and low-cost detection of all these, by bringing high-end molecular diagnostics from the lab to the field. The impact of this, therefore, is long-lasting, empowered by the capability of detecting unforeseen pandemics in the coming years that may potentially endanger human lives time and again.”

According to Dr. Arindam Mondal, Assistant Professor, School of Biosciences, IIT Kharagpur, “During the testing phase of patient samples, all kits, exclusively developed at IIT Kharagpur, were transported in an uncontrolled environment for hours to the testing unit, which shows high levels of stability of the reagents that are being used for the testing.”

Speaking regarding the commercialization of ‘COVIRAP,’ Prof. Tewari, said, “While the Institute can produce the testing kit up to a certain scale, patent licensing will facilitate commercialization opportunities for medical technology companies. Any corporate or start-up may approach the Institute for technology licensing and commercial scale of production. The Institute is open to tie-ups, with due measures of protecting the interest of public health amidst the pandemic situation.”

IIT Kharagpur Honours Rubrik CEO Bipul Sinha with the 'Distinguished Alumnus Award'

Bipul Sinha, the Co-founder and CEO of Rubrik, a unicorn tech company and world’s first Cloud Data Management platform for hybrid cloud enterprises, was today honoured with the ‘Distinguished Alumnus Award’ from his alma mater the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur. The award recognizes individuals who have achieved the highest levels of professional success in their respective fields. Prior American technology executive recipients of this award include Sundar Pichai, Google CEO.

[caption id="attachment_134285" align="alignleft" width="481"] Bipul Sinha, Co-founder and CEO of Rubrik[/caption]

Sharing his excitement Sinha said, “I’m honored and humbled to receive this prestigious award. The world-class engineering education I received at IIT Kharagpur has been foundational to my success in technology. Additionally, I’m fortunate to count many fellow IIT alumni as colleagues and business partners.”

Sinha drove the founding and funding of Rubrik and was the founding investor at Nutanix and Hootsuite. He holds several patents in distributed computing, a Bachelor of Technology in electrical engineering from IIT Kharagpur, and an MBA from The Wharton School, where he was a Palmer Scholar.

Under Sinha’s leadership, Rubrik has grown to a valuation of $3.3 billion USD and 1600 employees in less than six years. Rubrik has become known for its hypergrowth as well as its transparent company culture. In addition, Sinha is the Co-founder & Executive Chairman of Confluera and a Venture Partner at Lightspeed. Prior to this, he held senior engineering positions at Oracle Corporation, IBM and American Megatrends. He currently serves on the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) Board of Directors.
About Rubrik

Rubrik, the Multi-Cloud Data Control™ Company, enables enterprises to maximize value from data that is increasingly fragmented across datacenters and clouds. Rubrik delivers a single, policy-driven platform for data recovery, governance, compliance, and cloud mobility. For more information, visit https://www.rubrik.com/ and follow @rubrikInc on Twitter.

Rubrik is a registered trademark of Rubrik, Inc. Other marks may be trademarks of their respective owners.

~ Published Unedited via Business Wire India

Wipro and IIT Kharagpur Partner for Advanced Research in 5G and AI

Wipro Limited , a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company and Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur), today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate on high-impact, industry-focused applied research in the areas of 5G and AI. Research outcomes from this partnership will be leveraged by Wipro to develop solutions for its customers, across industry verticals. IIT Kharagpur will benefit from the commercialization of the joint research insights and Wipro’s real-world industry expertise.

Wipro and IIT Kharagpur will jointly take up applied research projects on industry challenges related to the design, planning and operations of 5G networks and cognitive information processing for the automation of these processes and 5G use cases. The two organizations will focus on AI research applicable in the healthcare, education and retail sectors as well as in domains such as climate change and cybersecurity. In addition, subject matter experts from Wipro and IIT Kharagpur will promote knowledge sharing through guest lectures, workshops and seminars on 5G and AI.

IIT Kharagpur is pursuing research projects in areas including front and back haul optical networks, vehicular ad hoc networks, interplanetary networks, channel estimation, optimized resource allocation, Multiple-Input & Multiple-Output (MIMO) and millimeter wave communications, secure communication & cross layer optimization and multimedia transmission for 5G. Student research groups are also working on Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN), which holds immense potential in 5G telecommunication. In addition, the institute is also working on foundational research in AI Algorithms, formal methods, machine learning, deep learning, graph mining and analytics, game theory and mechanism design.

Wipro offers end-to-end 5G solutions for network equipment providers, network service providers, smart cities and enterprises in the media & entertainment, manufacturing, energy and utilities verticals. This involves touchpoints across all network layers such as radio access, backhaul, transmission network, core network, orchestrator, OSS-BSS systems, edge & public cloud and application ecosystem.

Wipro has developed automation solutions, powered by its artificial intelligence platform - Wipro HOLMES^TM. Through algorithmic intelligence and cognitive computing capabilities, Wipro HOLMES^TM accelerates the digital journey of enterprises and enhances operational efficiency, economics, and user experience across applications, infrastructure management, and key business processes. Wipro has significant expertise and several use cases in the application of AI across industry domains. In addition, Wipro’s Data Discovery Platform (DDP), which has advanced analytics and AI at its core, offers Insight-as-a-Service across industries.

"Wipro is delighted to partner with IIT Kharagpur and strengthen our ties with the academic research community in India. AI and 5G are critical technologies poised to create opportunities that will significantly enhance customer experiences across industry verticals. We hope to bring together the synergies of Wipro’s rich industry technology expertise and understanding of domain-specific business challenges with IIT Kharagpur’s distinguished research capabilities to co-innovate and develop next-generation AI and 5G solutions that will benefit both our clients as well as the industry at large,” said K.R. Sanjiv, Chief Technology Officer, Wipro Limited.

Commenting on the partnership, Prof.P P Chakrabarti, Director, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur said, “Our partnership with Wipro comes at an opportune time and holds tremendous potential for co-innovation. 5G is expected to provide ubiquitous connectivity for diverse applications such as automotive communications, remote control with haptic style feedback (using artificial intelligence), large video downloads, automation of enterprise functions and low data rate applications. For instance, cars of the future will speak to each other to help avoid accidents and also share information about the road conditions ahead. With the advent of 5G, IoT will be extensively used in our day-to-day life, across industry sectors as well as in Smart City and Smart Home concepts because of enhanced connectivity, speed of communication and reduced round-trip time latency.”

Published unedited from BusinessWire India feed

Email Collaboration SaaS Startup Hiver (Grexit) Raises $4 Mn from Kalaari Capital and Kae Capital

San Jose, California and Bengaluru-based Software as a Service (SaaS) application, Hiver (formerly Grexit), that helps organizations collaborate from their email inboxes, has raised $4 million (~ Rs.30 crore) in a Series A round of funding led by Kalaari Capital and Kae Capital.

The startup will use the freshly raised funding for product development, as well as for expanding its global customer base.

Notably, this funding round is the first round of equity financing raised by the startup since November 2011, when it raised $130,000 in seed funding from the Citrix Startup Accelerator, The Morpheus and Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

Post this funding, Gaurav Chaturvedi, venture partner at Kae Capital, and Rajesh Raju, manning director at Kalaari Capital, will be joining the Hiver's board of directors.

"We believe Hiver has the potential of becoming a product that is synonymous with productivity for businesses," said Chaturvedi of Kae Capital.

Founded by Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur alumni, Niraj Ranjan Rout and Nitesh Nandy, Hiver was started in mid 2011 with an aim to build a collaboration tool that would let them stay in their inboxes and yet get work done efficiently.

[caption id="attachment_126832" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Bangalore Team of Hiver
(Image - Hiver @Twitter)[/caption]

The app was previously known as GrexIt, however in September 2015, the company changed its name to Hiver to avoid a naming conflict with the term Grexit being used to refer to the probable exit of Greece from the Eurozone. The company however retains GrexIt, Inc. as its legal name.

In a statement to a business daily, Niraj Ranjan Rout, co-founder and chief executive of Hiver, said, "With this investment, we will fuel our efforts to realise our vision of making Gmail a powerful collaboration platform that businesses can use for sales, support and their internal functions."

Before co-founding Hiver, Raut was also a co-founder of Mobilcules, a Noida-based firm that builds innovative and sophisticated products primarily for start-ups/new ventures in the US, Europe and India. Raut then exited Mobicules in January 2011 to focus on Hiver. Nitesh Nandy was also formerly at Mobicules as Technical lead and project manager

Hiver is now used by thousands of companies globally including Harvard University, and US-based vacation rental companies Hubspot and Vacasa. The app is one of the most loved products built for Gmail and G Suite.

Source - Economic Times

Email Collaboration SaaS Startup Hiver (Grexit) Raises $4 Mn from Kalaari Capital and Kae Capital

San Jose, California and Bengaluru-based Software as a Service (SaaS) application, Hiver (formerly Grexit), that helps organizations collaborate from their email inboxes, has raised $4 million (~ Rs.30 crore) in a Series A round of funding led by Kalaari Capital and Kae Capital.

The startup will use the freshly raised funding for product development, as well as for expanding its global customer base.

Notably, this funding round is the first round of equity financing raised by the startup since November 2011, when it raised $130,000 in seed funding from the Citrix Startup Accelerator, The Morpheus and Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

Post this funding, Gaurav Chaturvedi, venture partner at Kae Capital, and Rajesh Raju, manning director at Kalaari Capital, will be joining the Hiver's board of directors.

"We believe Hiver has the potential of becoming a product that is synonymous with productivity for businesses," said Chaturvedi of Kae Capital.

Founded by Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur alumni, Niraj Ranjan Rout and Nitesh Nandy, Hiver was started in mid 2011 with an aim to build a collaboration tool that would let them stay in their inboxes and yet get work done efficiently.

[caption id="attachment_126832" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Bangalore Team of Hiver
(Image - Hiver @Twitter)[/caption]

The app was previously known as GrexIt, however in September 2015, the company changed its name to Hiver to avoid a naming conflict with the term Grexit being used to refer to the probable exit of Greece from the Eurozone. The company however retains GrexIt, Inc. as its legal name.

In a statement to a business daily, Niraj Ranjan Rout, co-founder and chief executive of Hiver, said, "With this investment, we will fuel our efforts to realise our vision of making Gmail a powerful collaboration platform that businesses can use for sales, support and their internal functions."

Before co-founding Hiver, Raut was also a co-founder of Mobilcules, a Noida-based firm that builds innovative and sophisticated products primarily for start-ups/new ventures in the US, Europe and India. Raut then exited Mobicules in January 2011 to focus on Hiver. Nitesh Nandy was also formerly at Mobicules as Technical lead and project manager

Hiver is now used by thousands of companies globally including Harvard University, and US-based vacation rental companies Hubspot and Vacasa. The app is one of the most loved products built for Gmail and G Suite.

Source - Economic Times

Entrepreneurship Cell IIT Kharagpur Announces Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017 Edition

Amidst the entrepreneurial boom this year, Entrepreneurship Cell of IIT Kharagpur has already ventured various activities, including the Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive (EAD), a pan-India initiative to spread entrepreneurship in 23 cities across India. With the successful execution of EAD 2016, which saw close to 30,000 participants and personalities such as Ankur Warikoo (Co-founder and CEO of Nearbuy), Muurugavel Janakiraman (founder-CEO of Matrimony.com) and Gaurav Kachroo (CEO, Today Retail), Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur now verges upon - the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES).

Entrepreneurship Cell IIT Kharagpurpresents Global Entrepreneurship Summit-2017 (scheduled: 3^rd-5^th February, 2017), one of its flagship events and the biggest entrepreneurial platforms for New-age Entrepreneurs, Eminent Business personalities, Venture Capitalists and College Students to their entrepreneurial endeavors and experiences, and to pledge to take entrepreneurship in India to greater scales.



The major draw of GES is the quality and variety of speakers that it has seen over the years. The previous editions of GES have witnessed Stalwarts such as Sundar Pichai (CEO of Google), Rajat Sharma (founder and CEO of India TV), B K Chaturvedi (former cabinet secretary, Government of India and Padma Bhushan Awardee), Sramana Mitra (Forbes Columnist and Silicon Valley entrepreneur), Sanjeev Bhickchandani (Founder, Naukri.com), Vani Kola (MD, Kalaari Capital) and many more. The GES 2017 alike its previous editions will follow the same course. Workshops, focused on building the entrepreneurial acumen of participants are also in the pipeline by companies like Samsung, Microsoft, BSE, IBM, Intel, Flipkart, Amazon Web Services, Deloitte, Calcutta Angels, Vmware and other such corporate giants.

Global Entrepreneurship Conference, serves as a conclave for discussion of opportunities and programs steered towards popularizing entrepreneurship across the world. The conference is followed by Connect the Dots, a discussion amongst the Entrepreneurship Cells in India about the Indian scenario and how best to go about promoting entrepreneurship in their respective campuses.

The Global Busniess Model competition, Empresario, is the first ever business model competition in India. The finals are part of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit wherein the winners will get a direct entry in the semi-finals of the International Business Model Competition.

Start-up Camp aims to help Start-ups to recruit the finest talent amongst GES participants for internships/jobs while giving them an opportunity to meet the biggest VC and Angel Investors in India present on campus.

The Global Entrepreneurship Summit, with its varied content and participation, will prove to be the ultimate stage for propagating this cause. Participants should register at www.ges.ecell-iitkgp.org for the Summit. The accommodation of students attending for the three days of GES will be taken care of by IIT Kharagpur for which they will be charged nominally.

Early Bird Registrations have been started and the last date for early bird registrations is 8^th January 2017

This IIT Kharagpur Alumni Startup Is Using Carbon Dioxide To Make Valuable Chemicals

The saying, "one man's trash is another man's treasure" stands true for the company Tuticorin Alkali Chemicals (TAC). While Carbon dioxide is considered as a dangerous waste for planet Earth, it is an important element for TAC as it is a vital input in making soda ash. The company is completely dependent on a SPIC fertilizer plant for this gas, but in the near future with the changing technology it will have to drastically reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that it requires. In order to prepare itself for this future crunch, the company even attempted to produce the gas by making using of a lime kiln, but unfortunately they had to be abandoned this midway due to poor quality, high costs of lime and a number of other reasons. Hence, the company was in an urgent need of a fresh source of CO2 that could have the potential to take care of the growing soda dash demand that the company was facing. Here's where Carbon Clean Solutions, a startup by IIT Kharagpur amlumni, came to its rescue.

Started in the year 2009 by two undergraduate students, Mumbai-based Carbon Clean Solutions visions to become a world leader in carbon dioxide separation technology. While extracting carbon dioxide from flue gases in power plants and using it to make valuable chemicals is still considered a difficult task in technology and economic terms, but the startup claims that its method has the potential of achieving the results cheaply.

TAC already had boilers in a small thermal plant for producing flue gases. Carbon Clean Solutions has successfully set up its equipment to capture CO2, which also has the potential of capturing the soot and other pollutants from coal. The thermal plant is now able to function cleanly, and TAC is getting enough carbon dioxide supply for its present needs as well as for future.

Thermal plants are considered as an important carbon dioxide emissions source in the world. There is a strong belief present in the scientific world that capturing and sequestering thermal plant emissions is an important step so as to deescalate the alarming rate at which global warming is currently growing. This is mainly because currently humans have no choice but to keep using fossil fuels for a few more decades.

Research firm Markets and Markets predict that the global market for carbon capture and sequestration will stand at a whopping $8.05 billion by the year 2021. It is important to note that carbon capture technology is still in its nascent stage, and has the potential of becoming something quite big in the near future as billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide is emitted each year by coal plants. Seeing the graph of growth that one can have in this sector, there is a sudden urgency all around the world to develop solutions to capture and sequester carbon dioxide, or, if possible, even develop valuable products.

The startup, Carbon Clean Solutions, has been co-founded by Aniruddha Sharma and Prateek Bumb, who are currently serving as CEO and CTO of the company respectively. Both the co-founders are Alumni of the prestigious IIT Kharagpur and are involved in the day-to-day operations of the company so as to achieve the company's mission of delivering step changing products that can significantly reduce the cost of carbon dioxide capture.



The journey of Carbon Clean Solutions started seven years ago when its co-founders (who were still students back then) entered a business plan competition at IIT Bombay and came third. This was followed by them winning an award at the prestigious Pan-IIT conference. This is when a mentor, who is still unnamed, approached them and offered to give them some seed money. Since, back then, their Alma matter IIT Kharagpur did not have the labs where one could carry out this kind of research, they decided to started building things from scratch, outside from the purview of IIT Kharagpur. This led them to approaching Mumbai's Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) in Mumbai, where they ended up setting a small pilot plant. At ICT, they both developed and tested a proprietary solvent that could successfully dissolve carbon dioxide using a proprietary catalyst. The solvent proved out to be extraordinary according to the existing industry standards back then and could remove 90% of the carbon dioxide from flue gases.

This success led Sharma and Bumb to venture out of the country for testing and expanding their business. During its seven year long journey, they have succeeded in getting angel investment from India and Europe, and a whopping $6 million from the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change for technology demonstration. In fact, the startup also received money from the US government, for demonstration in a pilot plant. In 2015, the startup raised another $5.7 from private equity firms. Its technology has also been tested at the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, called TNO in Europe, and according to TNO's principal scientist Earl Goetheer, the startup has made a breakthrough in energy consumption.

India is currently generating approximately 186 gigawatt of coal-based power, and these plants are emitting about 600-700 million tonnes of carbon dioxide gas every year. When compared globally, Indian thermal power plants are considered highly inefficient as they emit far more carbon dioxide than most of the plants in the world. In fact, even if the country has very efficient plants, it will still be emitting far more carbon dioxide than the country should, if it is serious about controlling the rapid climate change that planet is currently experiencing.

Although the number of coal-fired thermal plants are now declining in the developed world, they still continue to hold importance in the developing countries for a while. This is the reason that a number of public-funded labs and private companies are trying to develop innovative methods to capture and sequester carbon dioxide but at a cheap cost.

IIT Kharagpur’s Annual Global Business Model Competition, Empresario Launched

This year, Entrepreneurship Cell IIT Kharagpur and IBM are proud to present Empresario 2016 in association with the prestigious International Business Model Competition (IBMC) which is co-hosted by Stanford, Harvard and Brigham University. The best entries in all categories will get an opportunity to participate directly in the semi-final rounds of IBMC 2016, which will be conducted abroad. The prizes and services for the winners as per last year are worth 25 lacs INR.

The shortlisted entries are provided immense help in terms of mentorship and the winners also get a much sought after chance to pitch their ideas in front of some of India's biggest VCs and investors. Empresario participants are mentored and supported by organisations like TiE, NEN(National Entrepreneurship Network) etc. Startup Services like legal advice, taxation, financial, technical aspects of running a startup, co-working space, HR needs, incubation opportunities, etc. are provided.

Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur is a student organisation established with the aim of fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship among college students in India. We are one of the most successful entrepreneurial organisations in the country with over 50 start-ups incubated within 8 years of our inception. We are playing a vital role in developing the upcoming startups into successful companies by taking a great initiation of conducting flagship competition namely Empresario, our Annual and India’s only Global Business Model Competition.

It has been observed that startups with static business plans fail miserably since reality does not conform to their assumptions. Hence, there is a need for a more dynamic methodology while starting up and this is why the Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur sought to undertake a Business Model competition, which was entitled 'Empresario'

Empresario accepts business ideas in all fields which include Product and Service, Product Design and Social categories. Each of the entries get equal opportunity to win the prize and incubation money to the tune of INR 2.5 crore.. Previously, Empresario has been launched in association with TiE Kolkata, Mahindra Spark the Rise and Dell Social Innovation Challenge.

Empresario is about recognizing that any new venture is just a guess at a problem / solution and the only way to test whether those guesses are correct is to “get outside the building” and validate their idea with customer feedback. A business model is designed to change rapidly to reflect what you find outside the building in talking to customers. It’s more visual, dynamic and it reflects the iterative reality that startups face.

For the first round of Empresario, we will require participants to fill up a questionnaire asking in brief about their Business idea and submit it. This questionnaire can be found on our website www.ecell-iitkgp.org/empresario . If participants register now, they can avail the Early Bird privileges, which include extended mentoring and offline mentoring session.