While Sona College of Technology’s Department of Fashion Technology was conferred the mentor institution award by virtue of winning the best industry linked institute award for the third time in a row, its Department of Mechanical Engineering won the best industry linked institute title for the second time.

The Department of Fashion Technology bagged the award in 2018, 2019 and 2020. The 2020 award was for its achievement in getting 100 per cent placements for students, industry connect with more than 240 companies, five MoUs, ten contractual research projects and getting two patents. In addition, the department filed ten patents and also was engaged in a prestigious collaborative R&D project with industry.

A high-powered jury announced the results of the AICTE-CII survey of industry-linked Technical Institutes 2020 and the awards were presented by the Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank at a virtual event to coincide with the AICTE-CII annual education summit.

Sona School of Management got a special mention for its industry linked efforts among the MBA programs.

The 63-year-old Thiagarajar Polytechnic College (TPT), a winner every year for the AICTE-CII awards since 2014, has been enjoying the mentor institution status since 2019. This status will continue until 2021 and enjoins upon the college to share innovative practices and learnings in building industry-academia partnerships with other institutes.

As part of this award assessment the AICTE-CII survey assesses the current status of partnership between technical institutions and industry on six basic parameters, such as curriculum, faculty, governance, infrastructure, placements and research and projects, and skill development.

The awards come in four broad categories of engineering, management, pharmacy and architecture/planning categories. Within the engineering stream the awards are equally divided among degree granting and diploma granting institutions, with a separate award for the best industry linked IITs, NITs, IIITs.

Expressing his pride, Mr Chocko Valliappa, Vice Chairman, Sona Group of education institutions, said, “This year's award was sweeter as these were partnerships with industry in the middle of a pandemic. Working with industry in normal times is ok. But working in COVID times to develop machines that India needed made this even more meaningful. The fact that we designed, developed and built the seam sealing machine during a lockdown is a remarkable achievement and a testament to our resilience.”