Top innovations mentored by the Polytechnic Principal Dr V Karthikeyan and faculty included Innovative Smart Dache; Electric Motorcycle built from scrap -- Fuerza, and Virtual Reality Cycle Racing Game. 

The awards were announced at the virtual CII-DST Technology Summit held at New Delhi last week. The award categories to celebrate innovation included large, medium and small companies as well as innovative institutions IITs, Colleges and Polytechnics.

Dr S Chandrashekhar, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology congratulated the winners on their innovations and urged participants to continue nurturing their innovation framework to revolutionize industry for an exciting future.

To provide impetus to industrial innovations, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Past President, CII, and Chairman, CII Industrial Innovation Awards stated that Innovation combined with entrepreneurship, and a focus on research, innovation, and entrepreneurship is the key to a strong economy.

The Confederation of Indian Industry instituted the CII Industrial Innovation Awards to identify and celebrate innovative Indian enterprises, educational institutions like IITs, Engineering Colleges and Polytechnic Colleges across the nation.

“We are proud that mentoring by faculty during the pandemic contributed to several student projects focused on innovative deployment of technology that led to the Thiagarajar Polytechnic being chosen for the CII Industrial Innovation Award 2021,” says Chocko Valliappa, Vice Chairman of Sona group of education institutions.

The jury for CII Industrial Innovation Awards 2021 comprised of Mr. S Gopalakrishnan, Past President, CII; Prof. Y S Rajan, Former Chairman NITM and Former ISRO Professor; Prof V Ramgopal Rao, Director, IIT Delhi; Prof Pankaj Chandra, Vice-Chancellor, Ahmedabad University; Prof Devang Khakhar, Professor, IIT Bombay; Dr Himanshu Rai, Director, IIM Indore; Prof Gagandeep Kang, FRS Professor, Christian Medical College, Vellore; Prof Soumitra Dutta, Founding Dean, Cornell University; Prof UB Desai, Founding Director, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad; Prof Rishikesha T Krishnan, Director, IIM Bangalore and Jaya Panvalkar, Chairperson, Board of Governors, SVNIT, Surat.      

Thiagarajar Polytechnic College won the award in the Polytechnic category. The focus of the Polytechnic’s projects was to benefit common man, farmers, agriculture and construction sectors with a focus on providing sustainable technology solutions, which covered:

•         “e-Bike FUERZA” electric bike designed from scrap by students S. Ahmed Rabeek, R Balachandran, T Chandradevan, B Prince, S Jegatheeswaran of Mechanical Engineering under mentorship of faculty A Kanagaraj, N.Balaji Viswanathan and L Kannan.

•         “Smart Dache” an innovative smart cart developed by students K Pavithra Devi, S Hari Anand, M D Hemnath of Mechanical Engineering under mentorship of faculty A Kanagaraj, Dr P Ganapathy.

•         “Crop Guidance and Farmers Friend”, Smart farming using IoT Technology designed by students B Shruti, S Kishore Kumar, S Usha, S Vishali, S Suresh, M Megeswara of Electronics and Communication Engineering. The project was mentored by faculty Mr S Mahendran and Mr M Rajesh.

·       “Virtual Reality Cycle Racing Game” designed by students M Athik Mohammad Deepesh, AnungYangfo of Civil Engineering under the mentorship of Principal Dr V Karthikeyan and M Ponni.

•         “Bricks made from Bagasse Ash” developed by students V Viswanathan, S Raja, V Monish, RM Varsha, A Salman, B Karthika of Civil Engineering mentored by Principal Dr V Karthikeyan, S.Loganathan, and Dr R Lavanya.

•         “Low Cost Corn Separator” designed by students A Yukeswaran, V Sankarganesh, S Dhanush, A Vignesh of Mechanical Engineering mentored by Mr S Manikandan.

•         “Smart Fertilizer Dispenser" developed by students S Vishal, R Vignesh, P Obu Ramya and K Mutharasan of Production Engineering mentored by Mr G Balasivaramasubramanian.

•         “E-Bus Pass” designed by Computer Engineering student N Janardhanan mentored by Mrs V Saranya.