Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Jodhpur, in a unique way encouraged faculty members and researchers to pursue innovative and disruptive ideas through ‘Moonshot Competition’. They had to present their ideas through a pre-recorded video pitch.
The idea is to develop projects that can eventually lead to large-scale solutions to improve health, societal, economic and environmental issues. With such an initiative, the Institute aspires to stimulate new research initiatives to foster creativity and team-building alongside addressing urgent problems and paving the way to a sustainable future.
Prof, Santanu Chaudhury, Director, IIT Jodhpur, said, “The main objective of the competition is to encourage a moonshot culture and future-driven mindset in the institute, leading to transformational technologies and effective interventions for responding to societal challenges and aspirations.”
Some of the solution-oriented ideas selected under Moonshot Competition include:
- Debanjan Guha Roy shared an idea on Harvesting an Asteroid Microwave AssistedRock Pulverize and Electrostatic Separator which is related to Space, Microwave.
- Sumit Kalra shared through a video an idea on Personal Independent Digital Twinrelated to AI
- Sankalp Pratap, Prof. Romi, Prof. G. V. Reddy, Prof. Dibyadyuti Roy shared their creative idea onBRBL (To create countless ‘Birbals’ through technology intervention in Education) related to Education-AI
- Suchetana Chakraborty and Prof. Ankita Sharma submitted an idea on ‘ExPoPsych: Experiencing Positivity at the face of Psychological Vulnerability.’ which is related to AI and Psychology.
Some of these proposals have the potential to be initiated as a research project and subsequently, commercial viability will be accessed. Technology Innovation and Startup Center (TISC) at the IIT-Jodhpur can support subsequent incubation.
