ATK
New Delhi [India], April 2: The IIT Alumni Council acts as a knowledge centre and enabler to identify and deploy frontier technologies. Cost-effective access to these shortlisted technologies is critical for India to achieve stated goals for socio- economic progress, import substitution, environment preservation, quality of life enhancement, export revenue growth and global technology leadership.
Accordingly, the Council had facilitated the creation of a social impact fund (www.megafund.in) to provide patient capital for research intensive startups. In conjunction with its mission organisations, the Council identified six key technologies in September 2020 for capability and competency creation. The identified areas included electric transportation & drones, nuclear sciences & perpetual power, renewable energy & gaseous fuels, engineered biomolecules & vaccines, quantum technologies & cybersecurity, artificial intelligence & computervision and fintech.
In furtherance of the above, the Council had onboarded startups in the incubator (www.incubator.org.in) and Distinguished Fellows in the research mission (www.institute.net.in) to accurately define the problem statements and related technologies. The Council has signed MoUs with a wide range of organisations including CSIR, DRDO, Universities, Global Players, Stock Exchanges and startups. The Social Fund has defined around ten main platforms for funding and created a fund consortium with leading Tier 1 funds and CSR Foundations to enable provision of patient risk-taking capital, catalyse stock market listing and facilitate pilot projects. The Council has also constituted Task Forces in over twenty areas led by eminent alumni, scientists and technocrats to help determine technology gaps and identify policy changes required. In many of these identified areas, SPVs are being created - as public private partnerships or private sector joint ventures - to facilitate rapid commercialisation and global scale deployment in India.
"For electric transportation, the key challenge is to enable a mass shift from human driven private vehicles to autonomous public transport. The three key enabling technologies to do this are electricity storage, solar air conditioners and digital twins", added Dr Rakesh Seth, Founder of Ionique Innovation, Distinguished Fellow IITac - Electric Transportation and Chief Mentor - Electric Buses of the Go Mobility Platform.
"Micro nuclear reactors and electric transportation go hand in hand. Nuclear submarines and semiconductors for heat to electricity conversion (called TEGs) have been used by the India Navy for over fifty years. Primary challenge now is to improve the price performance by a factor of ten or hundred" according to Commodore R. Balasubramaniam, eminent Naval R&D veteran, Distinguished Fellow IITac - Shipbuilding and Chief Mentor - Water Transport of the Go Mobility Platform.
"As a tropical country with abundant sunshine, renewable energy should be a large part of our energy basket. We need to develop the capability and competency to go from sand to solar power. Once the capability is in place, rapid capacity creation can avoid the Rs 30 lac crores outflow on import of solar products and equipment," added Dr Milind Kulkarni, Founder of RSolec, Distinguished Fellow IITac - Semiconductors and Chief Mentor - Silicon Wafer Technology for the MegaSolar Platform.
"During Covid, we were able to demonstrate our global leadership in genetic diagnostics. Engineered biomolecules play a key role in the development of next generation early warning diagnostic tests for an entire range of requirements - from biological age assessment and gut biome analysis to epigenetic assessment and liquid biopsies for timely cancer detection." According to Pallavi Jain, Executive Director of Krsnaa Diagnostics, Distinguished Fellow IITac - Genetic Diagnostics and Chief Mentor of the Kodoy AI Platform.
"Cybersecurity is a crying need because cyber-attacks are making businesses cry. The challenge is to make our data resilient to attacks. The key is preparedness, stringent audit requirements and strong data privacy laws. Unlike physical theft, your data may be stolen, and you may not even know anything is missing. Or your data may be exactly where you kept it, but ransom seekers may prevent you for accessing it," added Sanjay Sahay, former IPS officer and Founder of TechConPro, Distinguished Fellow IITac - Cybersecurity and Chief Mentor - Data AI Platform.
"Artificial Intelligence and computervision is a foundational science. Self-learning and self-programming machines already exist. Platforms like ChatGPT and Kodoy are making the power of AI available to the common man," according to Satish Mehta, Convenor of MegaFund, Distinguished Fellow IITac - Photogrammetry and Mentor- Kodoy AI Platform.
"Crypto is a foundational technology like artificial intelligence. India is one of the first countries in the world to launch its own central bank digital currency. What the internet did to information, digital currency can do to money. It might well be the biggest asymmetric opportunity of the 21st century. India with its solid digital public infrastructure, lowest broadband costs, global leadership in IT services and a young demographic - is positioned to lead globally," according to Taron Mohan, Founder of Mobipay and Distinguished Fellow IITac - Digital Payments.
The Council now seeks to identify and engage with suitable industry partners with adequate resources to catalyse the development of appropriate indigenous technologies which could be mass commercialised over the next five years. The focus of the Council is on technologies (like nuclear fission) where the foundational science is well established and substantial enhancements to price performance can be achieved through the induction of new frontier technologies like ai, blockchain, proteomics etc
Those interested in collaborating with the Council to partner for development of the above technologies may write to applications@iitalumnicouncil.org . The Council is open to all forms of partnership with well-established companies with adequate resources - either directly through the creation of PPP and SPV type entities - or through startups supported by the IIT Alumni Social Impact fund.
IIT Alumni Council
IIT Alumni Council is the largest global body of alumni across all the twenty-three IITs and other partnering Institutes. Established in 2019, the IIT Alumni Council aspires to catalyse India's technological renaissance. The Council aspires to both compete and cooperate with initiatives of the Indian government in areas like climate change, human health and deeptech. IIT Alumni Council works to act as a network and as a bridge between various providers of wisdom, knowledge, information, ideas, expertise, wealth and entrepreneurship to promote technological solutions to social challenges. (https://iitalumnicouncil.org/)
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