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The eight groups of engineering college students all introduced great, imaginative methods to assist save the world, one concept at a time. The concepts had been introduced within the finals of the Al Gore Sustainable Know-how ventures competitors not too long ago at IIT-Madras, and I used to be fortunate sufficient to be one of many judges.
All of the shows within the competitors had been exceptional. One was from a workforce from IIT-Kharagpur that steered higher methods to desalinate sea water – a most welcome concept as a lot of the world faces water shortages, now or sooner or later.
One other concept, introduced by a workforce from Sastra College, Thanjavur, steered a brand new technique of capturing carbon from industrial exhaust to create comparatively cheap industry-grade Carbon Nanotubes (CNT).
This might be vital for a lot of causes, I realized. For one, it may considerably cut back carbon emissions from industrial furnaces.
For an additional, we’d like new and higher methods of manufacturing CNT; their distinctive molecular construction offers each power and chemical capabilities which can be paving the way in which for advances in nanotechnology, optics, electronics, structure and different fields that have an effect on our on a regular basis high quality of life.
“We will produce Carbon Nanotubes at a fraction of the present worldwide costs,” one of many Sastra College college students instructed the judges.
The competitors was the results of initiatives led by Prof. Oopali Operajita, a senior advisor to varied Indian parliamentarians. The distinctive characteristic of this competitors, in contrast to different know-how enterprise competitions, is that 33% of the marks had been for sustainability parameters.
One other intelligent concept was a design that leveraged gravity and buoyancy to enhance the effectivity of energy technology. This might be utilized to mini-power vegetation that work at a group stage. One other early-stage concept was a brand new strategy for producing algae-based biofuels – an inexpensive and environment friendly supply of power for the long run.
We judges, many people enterprise capitalists, obtained to speaking over lunch and agreed that a lot of these budding know-how entrepreneurs would find yourself at prime consulting corporations and banks – buying and selling of their desires for a comfortable job with a multinational.
Even the few who managed to withstand this temptation and really create a startup won’t have the talents and expertise to efficiently handle a enterprise. What they want is a mix of entrepreneurial zest and dynamism with a smattering of expertise and maturity – what an Eric Schmidt delivered to Google.
On the finish of the competitors I used to be heartened by the expertise base within the nation in addition to the power of those younger individuals to generate contemporary concepts.
The universities themselves have arrange entrepreneurship and innovation funds the place many of those children had been in a position to elevate as much as Rs. 10 lacs as preliminary seed funding. There are additionally a lot of Indian and worldwide competitions that present them a platform to current and check out their concepts.
This is a superb start line. What we’d like extra of is a Silicon Valley sort of ecosystem, the place these children can entry mentors in addition to govt expertise. They’ll want angels to assist them – financially and managerially – to shine their concepts into viable enterprise alternatives.
We now have a couple of angel networks just like the Mumbai Angels and the Chennai Angels, however we’d like many extra individuals to contribute money and time to construct on these concepts. Even when just a few of those ventures take off, they will create a big distinction not only for India however for the world.
Do share your personal concepts on find out how to promote progressive ventures on this nation (by the way in which, the Carbon Nanotubes concept received first place, and desalination was second).
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Source by Sudhakar Ram
