Ahmedabad: Now, engineering students from lesser known institutes who churn out brilliant ideas through their final-year projects can rub shoulders with their counterparts from coveted establishments, thanks to an initiative by the Ahmedabad-based NGO, the Society For Research And Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (Sristi).

In a bid to materialise these projects, Sristi has started a web portal which will facilitate people from different quarters to learn about projects carried out by engineering students across the country and utilise them accordingly. However, the portal called \'www.techpedia.sristi.org\' will upload only the summaries of the projects to protect the Intellectual Property (IP) right.

"In the absence of a platform the excellent works done by engineering students are not recognised.While students of IITs hog the lime light, while small town engineering students who also bring out great works have no opportunity of getting recognition of their work," said Anil Gupta, founder of Sristi and professor of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A). According to Prof Gupta, the portal hopes to deliver two objectives - to encourage originality of work by allowing these students to check on the kinds of projects that have been carried out in different parts of the country; and to solve the existing problems of medium and small-scale industries by highlight them in the portal.

Prof Gupta, who is the brain behind the idea said, "There are around six lakh technology students who spend at least six months in their final year for doing a project every year. And yet, nobody knows the fate of these projects. We are targeting to document at least half a million project works of the final year engineering students in the website. We have more already around 600 projects till now. There is no requirement from University Grants Commission (UGC) or All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for students to put at least summary of their project on a national portal."

The portal hopes to bridge the gap between the students and the industry, big or small to be able to mutually benefit from experience and innovation.

"Due to this gap, neither the problems of small and tiny industries are posed to the students nor are the good projects of the students used by the industries. The grassroots innovations already developed in the informal sector also do not get an opportunity for being valorized by these students," said Gupta, adding confidently, "By creating a techpedia, we will solve these problems."

The platform also plans to provide incentives and awards to students\' work, based on merit. The categories may vary from finding outstanding low-cost process and products options for the industry or adding value to grassroots innovations or to develop business plans to become entrepreneur based on technologies developed by them or other students.


"If even 1% of these projects become new products, the industry would get at least 6,000 fresh ideas to invest in and stimulate demand for new products and services," said Gupta.