Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee) has bagged “The Most Innovative Research Institute of the Year” Award given by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for industrial innovation to technical education institutions. This is 3rd consecutive year for the prestigious legacy STEM institution to win this award in a row. IIT Roorkee displayed exceptionally well in all three pillars of innovation – Disruptive Innovation, Innovation Quotient, and Innovation Realisation in the 9th edition of the annual CII Industrial Innovation Awards 2022 held on Dec 3 in a virtual felicitation ceremony during CII Advanced Materials Summit 2022.
IIT Madras was the first runner-up position in Most Innovative Institute 2022 category. The awards ceremony was witnessed among others by Vipin Sondhi, Chairman, CII National Mission on Technology, Innovation & Research; Dr. N Kalaiselvi, DG, CSIR & Secretary, DSIR; Dr. Ram Mashelkar, Former DG, CSIR, and Prof. Yagnaswami Sundara Rajan.
In the recent past, IIT Roorkee has developed technologies that are not only low effective but have a more significant societal impact, from which the following innovations have contributed to IIT Roorkee being selected for this award:
- Making biodegradable low-density Polyethylene using thermoplastic starch to solve the problem of polybags to make them environmentally friendly.
- Using Sodium-ion cells made from earth-abundant material to develop High-performance batteries at low cost, fast charging, safety, and fire prevention.
- A low-cost recycling process converting waste polyethene packets to paver blocks and wall tiles
A few initiatives launched by the institution to encourage industry-academia collaborations are Tech-Sarthi Scheme, Startup Expo, Technology carnivals, etc. Institute also focused on strengthening international collaboration, technology transfer, etc.
Moreover, IIT Roorkee is supporting 130+start-ups by TIDES (Technology Incubation and Entrepreneurship Development Society) & I-Hub Divyasampark. Both units facilitate the incubation of new enterprises with innovative technologies by admitting them to their Incubation Centre and providing physical, technical, financial, and networking support and services. Recently Institute took the initiative to start various multi-disciplinary virtual research centers to promote domain-wise research.
On this occasion, CII has also launched a compendium featuring the innovations mentioned above of IIT Roorkee, along with the innovations of the other leading Innovative Organizations of 2022.
