Engineering Students: Ahmedabad
Dream: To create a link between the theoretical and practical sides of engineering.
An idea can ignite several minds. This was exactly what happened with 22-year-old Hiranmay Mahanta, a final year student at the Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology (SVNIT). He had worked on a project with Anil Gupta, 57, a professor at IIM-Ahmedabad, who today is the executive vice-chairperson of the Centre-sponsored National Innovation Foundation (NIF). For six years, the professor had been struggling to create a model where technical needs of small and medium industry would be met by a database of projects made by engineering students in their final year, but success eluded him. With five of his co-students, Prasannajit Samal, Saurav Mishra, Bishwajit Mohanty Akshat Brahmbhat and Bhavik Gattani, Mahanta decided to take up the challenge. From their hostel rooms, they created a portal www.techpedia.in, a pathway linking the technological theses of engineering students with the industry.
| “I want to create one million jobs in India in the next decade.” Hiranmay Mahanta, MD, Techpedia |
Techpedia was able to establish a network among 500 engineering colleges across the country. Its enthusiastic team, guided and aided by Gupta, has been successful in creating a database of 1.04 lakh projects. Three months ago, the Ahmedabad-based Arvind Mills had to just click at techpedia.in to locate the collaborative model they needed for their educational trust. Techpedia has now started collecting Industry Defined Projects (IDPs), in which the industry needs technical knowhow. Once a company accepts a project, then the student, his guide and his college will get the royalties. The company gains in the form of less expenditure on R&D. Today Techpedia hopes to ensure that engineering students design their projects after selecting them from the IDPs list. Says Mahanta, who declined a Rs 6-lakh package to become the MD of Techpedia at one-fourth of that salary: “My mission is to make at least 6,000 projects available to the industry in the shortest possible time. I want to create one million jobs in India in the next decade.” It’s called engineering dreams.
–by Uday Mahurkar
Anil K Gupta
