One of the most important characteristic features of the innovation ecosystem emerging in India is that a lot of good ideas are found in small institutions in small towns. The connect between the real-life problems and the pursuit of their solutions seems quite high in such places.

In Gujarat, the cooperation between techpedia.in of the Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI) and Gujarat Technical University (GTU) has unearthed a lot of interesting projects done by engineering diploma students which are worthy of recognition and support. Somehow, the attention of public policymakers towards polytechnics has not been very strong. Let me illustrate the untapped potential of some mechanical engineering diploma students to stress the need for both policymakers and industrial entrepreneurs to connect with these institutions.

Four students, Viren Kumar, Chintan, Dileepbhai and Mayank Eashwarlal, developed a refrigerator of 125 litre capacity running on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). It is portable and can be used for pharma, dairy and other industries and the cost of interface is hardly Rs1,300. professors A B Patel and Y L Rao guided this project as also several other projects on exhaust gas recirculation improving the combustion efficiency of the engine.

We have also faced the problem of opening the four nuts of a wheel one at a time. Hamil, Nisarg Kumar, Daval and Sandeep developed a device in Rs 9,000 which can open all the four nuts simultaneously. This was done under the guidance of professors Modh and Pandya.
Piyush, Chetan, Ketan and Vijay have developed a turbo charger for two-wheelers which improves the efficiency of the engine and saves the cost.

Recently, as part of technology, energy, waste and process benchmarking of MSME units in different clusters students have achieved remarkable results. In the last week of June, Milap, Nishank, Rahul and Hiren from VVP Engineering College of Rajkot did the energy audit of Kadvani Forges Pvt. Ltd. during their industrial ‘shodhyatra’. This is a very reputed company having developed 190 types of functional and non-functional components during the last four years. What the students did was to look at the dimensions of compressed air receiver, gauge pressure leakages, pipeline and dimensions, wear and tear of various motor belts, speed of motors and then placed a recording meter to monitor the current, voltage, power factor etc. every five minutes. Then they developed a project for designing automatic power sector control as their final year project.

Under the new scheme of GTU, they get credit for defining and parameterising the problem and they will get credit for solving it in the final year. Their initial work showed considerable potential for saving energy. If such savings are multiplied in a large number of units, one can imagine the impact on economy, environment, efficiency and educational quality.

In Karnataka, the students of Canara Engineering College solved the problem of areca nut farmers. Manchi Srinivas Achar, the president of Areca Nut Farmers Association, found two of the five projects extremely encouraging and worth taking forward.

Slowly and slowly, the connections between real-life problems of MSMEs and the educational opportunities in technical institutions in polytechnic as well as engineering colleges are getting forged in different parts of the country. The policymakers may not be convinced of either the need or the mechanism of techpedia.in. But the students, their faculty guides and entrepreneurs are joining hands to make education more meaningful and projects more purposeful.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Hiranmay and a team of volunteers have now started work on the next version of the techpedia.in platform with the pro bono help of Persistent Systems, an IT company in Pune, so that more and more lateral learning starts taking place among various stakeholders.

Students of several technical institutions such as DAIICT, NITs, and IIMs are helping the techpedia team in ensuring that every student, faculty and entrepreneur keeps track of their problem solving oriented partnership. This is just the beginning. What GTU has done through this cooperation is a pioneering institutional innovation, the value it will add will become obvious in times to come through much more motivated, competent innovative and socially responsible technology  graduates. The highly encouraging response from MSME clusters is making this partnership rewarding for the entrepreneurs too.  It is a confluence of purpose, passion, platform and a powerful process.