IIT Roorkee has been adjudged as the ‘The Most Innovative Institute of the Year’ for its innovation quotient in the CII Industrial Innovation Awards 2020.

The award ceremony was held on Wednesday during the 26th DST-CII Technology Summit. The award was presented by Prof Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, DST, Government of India and Kris Gopalakrishnan, Past President, CII & Chairman, CII National Startup Council.

On this occasion, CII also launched a compendium featuring three innovations of IIT Roorkee, along with the top 25 Innovative companies of 2020.

The three innovations are:

• Nano-coating mask – An anti-microbial nano-coating for masks, PPEs, and other protective gears

• Prana Vayu Ventilator – A low cost portable mechanical ventilator with feedback control and respiratory monitoring with a remote interface

• Heal-agnostic – Breast Lung Oral Cancer Detector: Screening device for detecting breast or lung or oral cancer using exhaled breath

In his address, Professor Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary-DST congratulated all winners and other applicants for their innovation and urged everyone to continue nurturing their innovation framework to revolutionize our industries for an exciting future.

Prof Sharma highlighted that innovation is the new mantra of technical areas like manufacturing, communication, etc. India is a powerhouse of innovation and has the third-largest start-up ecosystem in the world.

He further said, “Indian government and industry should realize that disruption through convergence of technology and enterprise can be a game-changer for the economy and society.”

To provide impetus to industrial innovations, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Past President, CII, mentioned that “we must have a healthy mechanism to work on innovation and global collaboration in research, acquiring products and services and increasing the revenue stream.”

He further added, “I congratulate all participants and winners and the two institutes- IIT Roorkee and IIT Madras. More companies should showcase the innovation on this forum.

“Innovation, creation of intellectual property, and incubation are major pillars for strengthening our research output. We encourage collaborative partnerships between faculty members and students at all levels, and our incubator TIDES. This facilitates the process from ideation to creation. This award is a testament to the result-oriented innovation eco-system being fostered at IIT Roorkee” said Prof. Ajit K. Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee.