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MIT, one of world’s top ranking technological universities in America is joining hand with IIT Delhi and TechTop to conduct a 28 day social innovation boot camp in its campus with students from IIT Delhi and Mandi, other IITs and engineering colleges across India, along with students from ASB Malaysia and MIT USA.
The boot camp designed as a 24 x 7 ‘live and learn’ training programme will see the students going to different parts of Delhi and rural areas of Himachal Pradesh to understand the pressing social problems of the communities in India and apply their technological skills and innovative minds to come up with viable solutions. Every individual has an innovative mind and the camp provides an environment conducive for them to polish their design thinking and fabrication abilities as also develop innovation and entrepreneurship skills.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, has a history of discovery, knowledge creation, and innovation. Through the MIT Campaign for creating a Better World, MIT aims to extend their track record to the other side of the world, especially to a nation they consider one of their long standing partners – India. MIT believes that creative education will enable a future, where fundamental science unlocks new knowledge; where climate change yields to climate action; where clean energy is universal; where everyone can count on clean water and nourishing food; where diseasescan be detected before their symptoms surface; where Alzheimer’s itself is just a past memory; where good ideas don’t languish in the lab but flourish in the marketplace; where daring companies create thriving industries and achieve lasting progress; where prosperity is measured not in dollars, but in the currency of art, culture, and understanding; where quality education is sporadic; and where the world’s undiscovered talents are offered a digital path to a creative future.
To ensure that MIT continues to attract a community of exceptionally talented students and faculty from around the world, the MIT India Chair in Cambridge has joined hands with TechTop Charitable Trust for Innovation promotion, to conduct several bootcamps in India with national partners like IITs and other higher learning initiations in India and Asia as a whole. The first MIT Make in India Bootcamp was hosted in 2015 by TechTop in Chirayinkeezhu, a coastal village close to Trivandrum in Kerala.
In 2017, the MIT Make in India bootcamp has been re-named the MIT-IIT Make in India Bootcamp for Innovation, Fabrication and Entrepreneurship for solving social problems through the use of technology. 19 students from MIT and Asia School of Business (ASB) Malaysia are now in India teaming up with 32 students selected from several technical institutions from India for finding technological solutions for our nation’s felt needs and growing societal problems. This year, besides MIT’s India office, MIT SDM – MIT’s System Design and Management master’s programme and Kerala Start-up Mission are also supporting the 2017 MIT-IIT Make in India programme.
The camp was inaugurated by Mr. Jeffory Sexton, Charges’D Affairs at the Embassy of America, New Delhi. Mr. Sexton also reviewed products developed by the campers in the first two days maker event.
The camp is led by Rajesh M. Nair, a visiting scholar at MIT, positioned also as the Director of the Innovation Centre in Asia School of Business in Kuala Lumpur; and Professor Timothy Gonsalves, Director of IIT Mandi, renowned for his innovations and initiatives in the field of electronics and communication; and assisted by Dr. Mala Ghosh of MIT; Prof. Madhusoodanan Rao of IDC Centre, IIT Delhi and acclaimed energy expert, social engineer and innovation promoter, Prof V K Damodaran, and others.
Rajesh Nair when contacted on the novelty of this initiative stated that it will accelerate their desire to get involved in activities that would solve problems in our society. He also added that India is a sleeping giant with enormous amount of untapped cognitive resources. MIT-IIT Make in India boot camp initiated by TechTop Charitable Trust is a small but firm forward step to make us wake up and march to make India the go to destination for the global youth to seek solutions through technology for the problems faced by the society in this era of science and technology.
Participants will be exposed to India’s pressing social issues in agriculture, urban slums, healthcare, traffic and pedestrian issues, inclusion, energy, education and communications and the teams will find technological solutions during the camp days. Among the final products, those products that are viable for production, deploying and commercialisation will be taken over by IIT Delhi for further development. 10 days of the month long camp will be at IIT Mandi, an upcoming IIT in the Mountain State of Himachal Pradesh.
The month long boot camp started at IIT Delhi for Indian students will offer opportunities for continuous interactions with the global student community till July 15 and is expected to come out at the end with several interesting prototypes to demonstrate the capabilities of our young minds. MIT- IIT Make In India Boot camp is a part of a National Innovation Summit conducted by TechTop at IIT Delhi with institutions’ partnership. Summit also has a weeklong Innovation workshop for Indian Students and a 2 day national Innovation Challenge.
