CII and IITM collaborated for the first time in holding a joint meeting on Corporate Social Responsibility. The “CII Workshop on promoting technology innovations in CSR – Learning from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM)” was held on 28 September 2015, at IITM – Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research (ICSR) Building Hall.

Confederation of Indian Industry is in the processes of enabling the companies to create meaningful impact by choosing innovative and effective solutions in the CSR domain. The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM) is committed to a mission of developing strong and sustainable partnerships with academia, industry and entrepreneurs. CII has partnered with IITM in the CII-CSR gateway. A joint initiative of the IIT Madras Development Office and CII, the workshop was held to further the partnership and for Industry decision-makers to interact with IITM faculty to create awareness on the impactful projects and other activities of the Institute that are socially relevant and would be deserving of support.

There is socially relevant and innovative R & D underway at IITM in the areas of water purification, sanitation (household and larger scale), rural electrification using solar/DC supply, new generation DC motors, indoor air purification, various low-cost, high-tech health technologies, cost-effective housing, new pedagogies and many more at various stages of development and implementation. Currently IITM is partnering with four corporate houses to fulfill their CSR objectives through active projects in the areas of disability, education, waste management and supporting incubators.

The meeting began at 10:00 am and included talks by Industry leaders Mr. B Santhanam, President-Flat Glass, South Asia, Malaysia & Egypt & Managing Director, Saint-Gobain India Pvt. Ltd, and Mr N K Ranganath, Managing Director, Grundfos Pumps India Pvt Ltd, as well as by the Director of IIT Madras, Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi. Speaking on the occasion, Prof. Nagarajan (Dean, International & Alumni Relations) outlined the various modes of engagement of IIT Madras with industry, and pointed out that CSR funding for socially-relevant research and incubation represented “a new facet of academia/ industry collaboration, one that represents a win-win-win scenario for all stake-holders”.

Presentations were made by faculty of different Departments of IIT Madras explaining the socially relevant innovative projects being worked on in the areas of energy, safe drinking water, access to higher education for free online, technology for people with disability and research and development in infrastructure delivery. Each presentation was followed by a question and answer session where industry participants expressed their views.