First Foundation Day

IIT Kanpur Research and Technology Park celebrated the successful completion of one year of its formal operations. The year was replete with local industry events, special interest group meets, visits by industry experts and many insightful interactions on industry-academia partnerships. To mark this special occasion, a series of events were planned. 

The Chief Guest for the program was honourable NITI Aayog member Dr V.K. Saraswat. Dr Saraswat delivered a plenary talk titled ‘Importance and way forward for industry-academia interactions’ sharing his personal experiences on the nature of academia-industry interactions and how they have evolved over time. He crisply highlighted the need and the gaps in such interactions and the way to move forward.

The event was also graced by Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Director, IIT Kanpur and Deputy Director Prof. Manindra Agrawal. Prof Karandikar emphasized on the role of the university research parks in bringing industry and academia together. He further said that companies that can truly leverage the IITK research strengths and infrastructure must join hands and collaborate with Technopark@iitk to create indigenous futuristic solutions. 

On this occasion, Prof. Avinash Kumar Agarwal, the founder Professor In-charge of Technopark@iitk, shared the past, the present and the future growth trajectory of Technopark@iitk. He revealed the upcoming state-of-the-art Technopark@iitk building which is a 2.5 lakh sq. ft. green architecture with six floors. The first annual progress report 2019-20 of Technopark@iitk was also unveiled by the dignitaries.

The seven companies currently housed in Technopark@iitk namely VTOL Aviation India, Injectoplast, Threads India, AR Thermosets, iSMRITI, Kanopy Techno Solutions and Dataman Solutions presented their work and the ongoing R&D collaborations with IITK. They put up their company stalls as well and interacted with faculty, students and other industry participants. Besides, IITK Student-Industry engagement program titled ReWoP “IITK Students tackling Real World Problems’ was once again introduced and received an overwhelming response from industry and students. In this program, students would get a chance to work on real industry problems and industry would be benefited by out-of-the-box solutions as well as future workforce.  

During the event, the chief guest felicitated all the seven companies for believing in the concept of Technopark@iitk and joining hands with IITK in creating novel technologies. The complete Technopark@iitk team was also felicitated for their contributions which includes Mr Anand Rao Patil, Ms. Reema Mittal, Ms Mrinal Dubey, Dr. Ashesha Sinha, Dr. Pooja Agarwal and Suraj Prasad.

IIT Kanpur has a very rich legacy of introducing many firsts in higher technical education in India and continuing with its tradition it launched yet another ambitious project in 2019 branded as Technopark@iitk. Technopark@iitk is a Section 8 not-for-profit independent company that is intended towards promoting and accelerating industry-IITK collaborations to address the current and future challenges of society. And as the company celebrates its first foundation day, seven companies have already set up their R&D centres in Technopark@iitk and are engaging with faculty and students.

With their R&D bases in Technopark@iitk, companies get access to the world-class expansive research and technology ecosystem of IIT Kanpur. And this includes:

• Access to intellectual capital and expertise including faculty, students and research staff.

• Access to state-of-the-art research infrastructure.   

• Possibility of jointly applying for govt. grants.

• Possibility of jointly writing IP/Publications.

• Technology upgradation and skills for industry personnel.