IIT Guwahati and Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) join hands to support Students Start-up

Guwahati: A tripartite incubation support agreement has been signed between IIT Guwahati, Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) – a public sector company, and Vigitrics Private Limited on 17th March 2021. The agreement was signed by Dean (Industrial Interactions & Special Initiatives) IIT Guwahati, Prof. G. Krishnamoorthy, Senior Chief General Manager (Corporate affairs) NRL, Mr Nikunja Borthakur, and Director, Vigitrics ,Mr. Pharvesh Salman Choudhary in presence of Director, IIT Guwahati Dr. T.G. Sitharam, other officials of NRL, IIT Guwahati and Vigitrics Private Ltd at IIT Guwahati.

Vigitrics Private Limited, a start-up company aiming to develop an Intelligent Drowsiness Detection System, will be incubated at the Technology Incubation Centre of IIT Guwahati (IITG-TIC). The start-up company is funded by NRL through its Start-up Funding Program iDEATION. The start-up was founded jointly by two students from IIT Guwahati and a student from Tezpur University, Assam. The co-founders of Vigitrics Private Limited are Pharvesh Salman Choudhary, Director Mousumi Das, Director and Satyabrat Malla Bujarbaruah, Director.

The company aims to build a low-cost system to detect drowsiness of the driver with a multimodal approach. The proposed system is a non-intrusive system used to determine the drowsiness of the driver and to alert the driver if drowsiness is detected. The system developed will continuously evaluate driver’s physiological and behavioral parameters to assess the drowsiness level.

IITG-TIC supports such innovative activities through incubation and provides technical mentorship in collaboration with research experts in the field at IIT Guwahati. The agreement was signed in the presence of Prof. Sitharam, Director IIT Guwahati, who commented, “To enhance the institute-industry collaborations, innovations and entrepreneurship IIT Guwahati established an office of Dean for Industrial Interactions and Special Initiatives (II&SI) in May 2020. I appreciated that this company is founded by students including a girl student of IIT Guwahati through their innovative idea. I also welcome NRL to fund more start-ups from IIT Guwahati. Through this collaboration, both NRL and IIT Guwahati are expecting significant boost in high quality products and provide a foundation for further collaborations resulting in self-sustaining technologies in various fields of mutual interest.”