IIT Roorkee organises Startup Expo 2022; 4 startups gets Best Startup award

NEW DELHI: On the occasion of the 175th foundation day, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee) organized a Startup Expo 2022 recently. IIT Roorkee students, faculty, startups, and more than 100 industry representatives participated in the event.

IIT Roorkee’s innovation ecosystem has supported more than 125 startups. Apart from students, faculty members of the institute, outsiders also got incubation support for their startups, the IIT said in a statement.

During the Startup Expo, 50 startups showcased their products and technologies in emerging fields of AI-ML, Drone Technology, Robotics, Health Sciences, Agriculture, Environmental, Energy Sector, & E-commerce.

The event was conceptualized with a defence-centric theme. “The objective was to serve as a medium of interaction between the founders and various stakeholders, thus promoting a thriving entrepreneurial culture,” it said.

Stalls of commemorative stamps and coins issued on the occasion of 175 years were also showcased at Startup Expo.

The event was inaugurated by Kailash Kumar Pathak, director, DFTM DRDO, Colonel Virbhadra Singh Rawat, Defence Coordinator of Uttarakhand government and Shambhu Sharma, Head of Operations, OPTEL, in the presence of other dignitaries.

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During the event, the Best Startup award was given to 4 startups from various domains. The winners were Indigenous Energy Pvt. Ltd., Cypher, Ballice Smart Devices, and Super Good Nano Pvt. Ltd. Some of the key startups that participated in Startup Expo 2022 include:

• RavenEye Geospatial Tech Limited: IIT researchers set up a new company, RAVENEYE GEOSPATIAL PVT LTD, under TIDES, IIT Roorkee (Startup India Program by Government of India). The goal was to reduce the dominance of foreign companies in India's geospatial market, making India self-sufficient in this field. The company prepared drones, with the help of which the farmer can spray chemicals uniformly on the crop at a low cost, which will save both the time and cost of the farmer.
• DTown Robotics Private Ltd.: It is a deep tech startup based in Uttarakhand, India. The company works on designing and developing unmanned aerial/ ground solutions for Defence and Agricultural applications. It also works on the development of customized robotics and drone solutions, including hardware, software, and analytics solutions. They aim to provide advanced technologies to people who are serving the nation 24X7.
• Indi Energy: Indi Energy is an energy storage startup from IIT Roorkee with years of experience developing energy storage technologies like Sodium-ion batteries, Solid-state batteries, etc. The startup works for developing and commercializing Sodium ion (Na-ion) batteries and the technology of its content.
• Perovskite Innovations Pvt. Ltd: The startup develops perovskite materials based next generation X-ray detectors for X-ray imaging. It also focuses on making buildings energy efficient by integrating transparent solar photovoltaic panels into the building fabric using transparent perovskite solar cells.

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The institute also organised another session to pitch ideas for launching new startups. Three such ideas were pitched by Jagdish Neduri, Chaudhary Mohammad Tariq, and Gajanan Gitte and were noted by the jury members. Pahul Singh Sawhney and Kunal Shah pitched the two most promising ideas and were provided pre-incubation support at the Tinkering Lab of IIT Roorkee.

A panel discussion was held on High Tech and deep-tech technologies to strengthen the nation's startup ecosystem, focusing on taking Indian technologies to the global level to meet its commitment to Atmanirbhar Bharat, IIT Roorkee said.