IIT-Bombay celebrates Golden Jubilee with competition

Mumbai, May 9 (UNI) The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay today launched a competition, '10 Great Ideas to Change the World', here on the occasion of its Golden Jubilee celebrations.

The competition will be open to all 5,500 students, 32,000 IIT-B alumni, present and past faculty members, who can submit inventive and innovative ideas till October 30. A special website has also been created for enquiries and registration.

''If we believe that India is capable of 10 per cent growth and problems of poverty, education and societal transformation can be tackled, we need ''out of the box'' solutions, which institutions like IIT-B can produced,'' said chief guest Adi Godrej, chairman of Godrej Group, at the launch.

''I believe that the next advances we will make will be in agriculture, specifically genetically modified crops,'' he said.

The combination of scientific, technological and entrepreneurship can create a future for the country, he added.

The entries will be judged on novelty and originality of the ideas, Human Development Index, feasibility and environmental impact by an international panel, chaired by former president A P J Abdul Kalam.

Other members of the panel will include Infosys founder Narayan Murthy, industrialists Mukesh Ambani, Rahul Bajaj and Adi Godrej, and scientist Prof Mark Welland, Head (Nanoscience) of Cambridge University.

''IIT is one of the country's most potent brand names and the competition, which is the brain child of ad guru Alyque Padamsee and the distinguished panel of judges, should add to its aura,'' said IITB Director Prof Ashok Misra.

He said IIT-B currently has facilities for incubating 50 innovative enterprises and has successfully incubated 20 innovative ideas for commercial applications. To facilitate transfer of knowledge and level of education, the institute has tied-up with 100 colleges and institutions through Indian Space Research and Organisation (ISRO) and Internet.

Selection will be completed in February next year and top 10 ideas will be presented by the initiators at a round table in March.

Intellectual property rights, recommendations and commercial applications will be supported by IIT-B.

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