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Ahmedabad More and more technology institutes
and industry associations are joining hands with the online database
of students' engineering projects - Techpedia.

More than 1.5 lakh final-year engineering students have registered with the website www.techpedia.in. The database is freely available to industries, especially SMEs and if they find it suitable, they can work with the student who came up with the project.

The brainchild of IIM-A Professor Anil K Gupta, it is now managed by a fresh-out-of-college engineer Hiranmay Mahanta.

Recently, the Punjab Technological University at Jalandhar, which exercises jurisdiction over more than 200 engineering colleges, has pledged its association with the portal. The University\\\\\\\'s Dean (of Student Affairs), Prof A P Singh, recently circulated a letter to affiliated colleges asking them to inform all students and faculty of the initiative.

Besides PTU, the National Institute of Technology at Surathkal in Karnataka has also pledged that it will forward the UG and PG course projects to Techpedia.

Besides acting as a collection point for these projects, the portal has also reached out to industry associations, asking them to submit Industry Defined Problems on which students can work on as their final year projects, to forge direct links with the industry.

The latest to join is the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Secretary General Hasmukh Singu recently sent a letter to all GCCI members asking them to send their IDPs to the portal. In the last two months, at least three industry associations in the electronics and pharmaceutical sector, as well as the Industries Department of Orissa has asked units under them to contribute.