Six student teams who came up with aninnovative ideas that had the potential to become innovative products and successful enterprises like Real-time Communication & Surveillance system for Fishermen, Smart Cradle, Automated prawn farms, Early warning system for railway track maintenance, motorized vehicles with engines powered by hydrogen fuel cells and Low-cost smart projector were offered with Rs.5 lakhs grant by FORGE during the 4-day residential Boot Camp, held recently in association with Entrepreneurship Development and Innovation Institute (EDII), Govt. of Tamil Nadu. FORGE would support prototyping of innovative ideas with technical infrastructure and mentoring.
As a part of the MoU between EDII and FORGE, Startup Activation and Acceleration Program (SAAP), a five year strategic program was arranged and hosted by Kumaraguru College of Technology (KCT), says a release.
“In order to activate a strong pipeline of innovative ideas that aims at solving the most pressing problems faced by consumers, citizens, government, industry and planet, EDII and Forge launched the Tamil Nadu Student Innovators (TNSI 2017) program to seed the next generation of breakthrough ideas. It was expected to apply the power of technology to offer innovative solutions”, said Shajeevana, Additional Director, EDII-TN.
“FORGE was founded with the vision of fostering the emergence of innovation powered enterprises that integrate technology efficiency (enabled by connected devices, intelligent machines, advanced computing, artificial intelligence, automation & robotics, data analytics and digital business) with the timeless business potential of several sectors with huge potential for disruption”, said Shankar Vanavarayar, Founder & President, CIBI.
After a meticulous process of selection with over 100 students from 10 cities, representing 21 institutions, the top 18 ideas were selected by top experts, investors and entrepreneurs.
Of all, the top 6 selected ideas for FORGE Fellows & EDII Fellows program were Real-time Communication & Surveillance system for Fishermen by Bharathraghavan T & Maria Clinton R – Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering, Smart cradle by Visakan N L, Ramesh Kumar & Divyanand – Sri Eshwar College of Engineering, Automated prawn farms by Sabarinathan A, Sathish K & Ragavendiran K V – Anand institute of higher technology, Early warning system for railway track maintenance by Soundhar, Sugunesh & S Karthikeyan – M.kumarasamy college of technology, Hydrogen fuel cell powered engines for motorized vehicles by M Anand & R Dharmaraju – Bharath university and Low-cost smart projector by Abishek Babu & Balachandar S – Panimalar Engineering College. All the students were given grant to go ahead with their porjects.
The remaining 12 teams were awarded with a cash prize of Rs.25,000 each to build their prototype.