At IIT Bombay’s e-Yantra Symposium 2023, deliberations on technologies for a sustainable future took place

Mumbai : The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay was enlivened with scientific exuberance as young minds from all over the country gathered for the Grand Finale of the much-anticipated e-Yantra Innovation Challenge (eYIC), held as part of the exclusive e-Yantra Symposium from 5th-6th April 2023. Besides the 10 finalist teams for the competition, the Symposium brought together a great number of faculty and students from the e-Yantra Lab Colleges from across the country.

The e-Yantra Project, funded by the Ministry of Education (MOE), Government of India, and hosted at the CSE Department of IIT Bombay, has been grooming youths to learn and develop technologies that can help shape a better future for everyone.

The e-Yantra Innovation Challenge this year covered the core themes of Sustainable and Advanced Technologies for Helping Urban Inclusivity and Agriculture, where inclusivity caters to Persons with Disabilities (PWD). The section that contributes to about 2.2% of our population, usually have to face more hurdles to cope with. The competition brought young minds together under one platform to give them a scope to first learn, and then deliberate on seeking comprehensive solutions for a better and more inclusive future for all.

The Challenge allowed students to form multi-disciplinary teams from different institutions and domains. Winning teams who successfully pitched and proto-typed have the possibility of receiving seed funding to work further on their ideas.

The Symposium had interactive sessions, keynote sessions, workshop and panel discussions spanning two days. It brought all stakeholders together to exchange ideas in order to ignite among the young minds a transformative zeal to be “innovators for Local Disruption”.

On the first day, the inaugural address was given by Prof. Milind Atrey, Dean (R&D), IIT Bombay, followed by a status report on the e-Yantra project by Principal Investigator (PI) Prof. Kavi Arya. The morning session began with a panel discussion on the challenges of implementing National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The panelists, comprising the  Director of Technical Education (Maharashtra) Dr. Vinod Mohitkar, Padmashri Prof. Deepak Phatak (doyen of Distance Education in India), Prof. Rajan Welukar (Vice-Chancellor of ATLAS SkillTech University), Ashank Desai (Founder & Former Chairman of Mastek)  and other eminent educators & researchers, discussed and explored a roadmap for overcoming the execution challenges of NEP.

Innovation Challenge business pitch and exhibition were highlights from Day 1 of the Symposium. Teams also had to showcase their prototypes and defend their products through rigorous queries on business and technical viability by the Jury members.

An interactive session was held to engage IIT Bombay faculty and researchers with the faculty members of e-Yantra lab colleges. The goal of this proactive effort was to enhance the quality of students and interns from participating colleges and to strengthen the student research outlook in these colleges.

E-Yantra hosted a first-of-its-kind design workshop in collaboration with DesignUp, the e-Yantra industry design partners. The purpose was to bring together designers and young engineering students and their faculty from the eLSI lab colleges across the country. Prof. Arya says, “The objective is to show engineers how “design makes engineering edible”. Whereas engineers are good at solving problems, designers are more used to delivering a user experience to customers thus making a connect between solutions and society.”

Mr Sudhanshu Mani, the man behind the Vande Bharat Express graced the Symposium on Day 2. He shared with the participants the background story of the Vande Bharat Express and the lessons learnt during the process of development, while also highlighting the aspect of amalgamation of technology, engineering and design.

Prof. Kavi Arya, the Principal Investigator of e-Yantra, believes in changing the outlook of students from “knowledge consumers” to “knowledge creators.” He says, “At e-Yantra, it is not the competitions that weigh in, it is our collective efforts to bring young minds to a stage where they learn to face a challenge and navigate their ways out of it, is what we prioritize. This Symposium was held with the sole objective to bring not only the students but all the stakeholders of the growing e-Yantra ecosystem under one roof to deliberate on ideas of the present, for a better and brighter future.”

The two day event also exhibited various initiatives by e-Yantra since its commencement in 2009 and selected startups displayed their products that have resulted from e-Yantra alumni who were once the e-Yantra interns or participants/winners of the competitions.

The goal of the Challenge is to create “student innovators for local disruption.” e-Yantra strives to achieve the goals set by the National Education Policy through its engagement with all key stakeholders. e-Yantra initiatives complement the engineering education system to render students more employable and oriented toward innovation and entrepreneurship.