If a wheel chair bound person has to travel a long distance, the general choice will be to board a means of transport with somebody’s assistance and to get a wheel chair at the destination to continue the journey.  Ajit, Tanmay, Ramkrishna and Nikhil, four students from Pune designed a three wheeler which a wheelchair bound person can self-board and drive, and then disengage after reaching the destination, to continue on wheelchair.

Soya Nuggets have been used as food for a long time.   Utkarsh Bhutani IITH developed a new use of Soya nuggets as a novel drug delivery vehicle; this opens a new vista in the targeted slow delivery of drug.  A frugal sustainable innovation has been developed by building upon local knowledge blended  with very high quality science.

Divakara Murthy Uppu, JNCASR Bangalore found a novel compound to restore the vitality of the obsolete antibiotics.  The antibiotic resistance bacteria have caused a Global alarm in the public health community. This idea involving a new molecule prevents development of resistance in the pathogenic organisms. A flexible biodegradable antimicrobial intrauterine contraceptive device (IUCD) was developed by Bhuvaneshwaran IITKH providing unprecedented convenience to the user. Aiswarya Paramadhatil ASIET, Kalady developed a very low cost sanitary napkin disposal machine.   Using shredder and simple chemical solution in a tank, the napkins are dissolved and later disposed off without environmental hazards.

Large number of similar ideas were honored with Gandhian Young Technological Innovation (GYTI) awards at Rashtrapati Bhavan on March 13^th this year.  Similar awards will be given next year to technology students from various fields of engineering, biotechnology, medical Science, agriculture, Pharmacy etc., on most likely March 05^th 2017.  Fifteen of them will get a special BIRAC – SRISTI award for Rs.15 lakhs each.  Hundred students will get Rs. one lakh each to work on Grassroots Innovation.  In addition there are five Hari Om Ashram prerit Dr. A K N Reddy GYTI awardsof Rs.50,000/- each.

Shivani and Anuradha won a 15 lakh award for Rapid antibiotic finder for urinary tract infection developed under the guidance of Dr. Suman Kapoor BITS Pilani Hyderabad.

Dhyey Shah got a similar award for designing a table spoon for Parkinson’s patients at IIT Gandhinagar under Prof. Bhaskar and Prof. Harish.  There is no dearth of technological talent in our country.  With renewed focus on startups, it becomes all the more important to identify such talented young people and invest in their innovative ideas.  The readers can help us find such bright students who have solved a technological problem either very frugally or have push the frontiers of Science, and/or are at a technological edge.  We are also looking for socially relevant Innovations which address any unmet social needs.  Those who have developed a biotechnological or medical Innovation can bid for BIRAC – SRISTI awards.  The applications can be submitted at (sristi.org/cms/sristi/birac) or mail togyti.techpedia@sristi.org.

Some of the innovators may also get a chance to be selected as Innovation Scholar In- Residence   selected by a committee chaired by the Secretary to The President of India. They will spend two weeks at Rashtrapati Bhavan and be mentored with the help of NIF to connect with policy makers, S and T institutions, and other stakeholders in private and public sector.

The largest engineering project portal www.Techpedia.sristi.org triggered this search for creative and innovative students. A microbial diversity and natural product lab at SRISTI.org will be accessible to all the relevant scholars under an in-situ incubation model being developed. The students can work wherever they are and come when needed to use sristi’s lab also. Similarly, NIF has a very elaborate fab-lab with a big 3-D printing facility, lot of other sophisticated machineries, which can be accessed for socially relevant technologies that meet unmet social needs. Now what are creative students waiting for? Apply soon at gyti.techpedia.in and submit your innovation. Pl don’t forget to upload the abstracts of all other projects by studenst form your collge/institute/university also at this portal. More visibility to the student ideas will imply more opportunities for co-creation, collaboration and creative entrepreneurship.

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Anil Gupta