Exciting student innovations showcased at IIT Bombay’s Invention Factory – India Today

The finale of the Invention Factory programme at IIT Bombay, a six-week-long ideate-to-prototype-to-pitch initiative, was held on July 1, 2022. Student participants of the Invention Factory Programme presented and demonstrated their inventions during the finale.

These student innovations were presented to and evaluated by a distinguished jury of innovators. The finale concluded with the grand announcement of the winners, a felicitation ceremony for the jury members, and a gala dinner.

The Invention Factory Programme commenced on May 19, 2022, and brought together 20 students from different IITs across India. They worked in teams of two to prototype and pitch their inventions.

A total of 10 inventions were developed by the student teams during this period. For each of these inventions, a provisional patent application will be filed, one in the US and one in India.

WINNING INNOVATIONS

Three teams were declared the winners of the programme on the basis of their unique and solution-oriented inventions.

Sripriya Konda and Shaan Sapru from IIT Kharagpur were placed first and took home a cash prize of Rs. 2 Lakhs for successfully developing a ‘Smart Clubfoot Brace.’

This device is a smart corrective brace for kids with an objective to ensure a higher compliance rate, enabling every baby with clubfoot to sleep comfortably.

The second position was bagged by Arpit Upadhyay and Mohit Jajoriya, IIT Bombay who won a cash prize of Rs. 1 Lakh for inventing a ‘Hand Pump with an Integrated Water Purification System.’

The objective of this product is to provide citizens with easy access to clean drinking water, especially those in rural areas. The specialty of this product is that it performs reverse osmosis without electricity.

Rahul Bansal, IIT Ropar and Phalgun Vyas, IIT Madras came third and won a cash prize of Rs. 50,000 for developing an ‘Active Thermoregulatory Vest’.

It is a lightweight, power-efficient and user-friendly vest that allows the consumer to set the temperature of the vest as per their comfort. The specialty of this vest is that it provides a cooling effect to the body during summers and keeps the body warm during winters.

OLDER EDITIONS

Four IIT Bombay Alumni first came across the Invention Factory Programme when one of them, Ruyintan Mehta, was present as a guest evaluator at Invention Factory at Syracuse University in 2016, and decided to launch the program in India.

The first two editions of Invention Factory were held at IIT Gandhinagar in 2018 and 2019 with support from the Maker Bhavan Foundation (MBF), a California-based charitable foundation. This year, MBF is supporting two editions of Invention Factory at IIT Bombay and at IIT Gandhinagar.

Commenting on the programme, Prof. Subhasis Chaudhuri, Director, IIT Bombay said, “Over the years, IIT Bombay has contributed significantly to India’s growing entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem with its cutting-edge R&D.”

“The institute has always played a pivotal role in developing unique solutions and products that are scalable, cost-effective, and most importantly address and find solutions to some of our most pressing problems,” he added.

Co-creator Prof. Alan Wolf, former Professor and Head of the Physics Department at Cooper Union and US Patent Attorney said, “As in all Invention Factory programmes, it is a wonderful experience to work with students intensively over the summer, when they can focus their full energy on inventing, prototyping, pitching their inventions, and learning (invariably for the first time) a bit of practical intellectual property law.”

‘STUDENTS WANT TO CONTRIBUTE TO SOCIETY AND MAKE IT BETTER’

Co-creator of the programme, Professor Eric Lima, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Cooper Union said, commented on the programme saying, “The differences (and similarities) between US students and Indian students are fascinating to me. The biggest similarity is that students, no matter where they are from, want to contribute to society and make it better.”

Commenting further on the Programme, professor Amber Shrivastava, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Bombay said, “It was truly wonderful to see the wide range of problems covered and respective solutions developed by the students, over a short duration of six weeks.”

Sripriya Konda, one of the co-inventors from the winning team of the programme said, “We are very thrilled. But we don’t want ours or any other of the inventions to die out. All the inventions can and should be pursued. This was a very good programme that gave us the opportunity to work with other co-inventors.”

ABOUT THE INVENTION FACTORY PROGRAMME

The programmed was originally conceived in the US in 2013 by Prof. Alan Wolf and Prof. Eric Lima. The objective of the program was to provide young students with a unique opportunity to invent products of their choice. IIT Gandhinagar was the first to organize this event for two summers before it made its way to IIT Bombay this year.

The six-week programme brought together students from IITs all over India and gave them a chance to work in teams of two to prototype and pitch their inventions. The first week consisted of ice-breaking sessions and learning how to use 3D printers and laser equipment. As the weeks progressed, the students commenced conceptualizing and bringing their ideas to life.

The inventions were evaluated and mentored every week by guest judges. By the end of the programme, students created functional prototypes.

Further details of the programme can be found here: https://acr.iitb.ac.in/InventatIITB/