Associations welcome techies’ web project on industrial problems

Now,the heads of industry associations are sending circulars to their members,asking them to provide their specific needs — called Industry Defined Problems (IDPs) — to the students.

Rajoo Goel,Secretary General of the Electronic Industries Association of India (ELCINA),sent an online circular to ELCINA members this April,urging anyone interested to “share specific technological problems on which they would like engineering students to work…”

Tapan Ray,Director General of the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India also sent a similar online circular to members of the organisations.

Vijay Kalantri,president of the All India Association of Industries (AIAI),a largely-MSME populated association,has also expressed support and willingness to work with Techpedia.

Hirnamay Mahanta,the newly-appointed Managing Director of Techpedia,said,“We have received more than 1,000 IDPs spanning across all 37 engineering sectors.”

Mahanta,who finished his engineering from the Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology (SVNIT) in Surat,said the response of the Orissa government towards the project has been another achievement for the organisation.

This May,L K Samantray,Additional Secretary to the Government of Orissa,sent a circular to the directors of various entities under the state’s Industries Department requesting them to take “appropriate action at (their) level and send (their) views/suggestions to this department at an early date”.

Prof Gupta said the Uttarakhand Chamber of Commerce has also shown interest in tapping the project database.

The main idea behind getting industries to provide IDPs is

to enable students to work on these problems and ease their transition from academics to career; solve unsolved problems of the Indian industries; and link technological colleges with industries.

“But our main thrust is on working with micro,small and medium enterprises. We are now planning a system where we scout for IDPs among these enterprises rather than wait for them to give it to us,” Prof Gupta said.

“Many of these units may not be comfortable with Internet. Besides they are mostly too busy sustaining themselves to find the time to come to us. So we must go to them,” he said.