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Addressing the event, Dr K Subramanian, Senior VP, Ashok Leyland, said, “Innovation is not just dreaming about an India, which is also needed, but it flows down from a Business case, which implies a market exists, the cost point is right, the product will be ‘manufacturable’ and reliable. Only when all those stars line up, will you have a business case, which has to come before the idea comes.”

Presiding over the event, Professor V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said, “This is a very important activity that IIT Madras believes is something that is going to define the future – Getting our youth involved in sustainability-related projects and allowing them to think, explore and find out certain methodologies and get some innovations done, which would essentially create a process by which we address sustainable development goals. This is the real objective of this effort.”

Thanking the Sponsors of the event, Professor V Kamakoti added, “We are seeing a National spirit with more and more participation from different States. I am sure the top five winners will take their projects forward. I want to see a start-up coming. In the next 10 years, recycling jobs will supersede coding jobs. If you get a nice product idea, we (IIT Madras) will help you in patenting it and ensure your idea is protected.”

Launched in October 2023, The ‘ideas to Impact’ Challenge 2023-24 received an enthusiastic response, with over 2,000 registrations in the first month along. The top 18 teams were selected after two rounds of rigorous evaluations. These selected teams were given approximately six months to validate their ideas and develop proof of concept (POC).

Launching the Second Edition of the ‘ideas to Impact’ (i2I) Challenge, PS Narayan, Global Head (Sustainability), Wipro Ltd, said, “Complex problems like Climate Change, water and other problems require ‘Distributed Problem-Solving,’ meaning it requires many, many people to think about it and do something about it and that cannot happen overnight. If you want to create an ecosystem of Distributed Problem-Solving, you will to start very, very early. You have to start at the foundational level – at the Schools. You have to start with concepts and ideas, which are so critical that they form part of your mental architecture. In the ‘ideas to Impact’ program, we are talking about leveraging the energy of students in the college phase before they go out into the wider world.”

Some of the shortlisted ideas include green hydrogen storage, energy generation from kites, cutlery and packaging materials from agricultural waste, advanced wastewater treatment systems, soil liquefaction systems, landslide detection, and flood prediction.

A panel discussion on ‘Bridging the gap from lab to market transition for eco-innovations’ was also held. Eco-innovations are key to a sustainable future. Transforming research into market-ready solutions can be a tough journey for students and researchers. This panel discussion addressed common obstacles and offer practical solutions.

The panel included key stakeholders in the eco-innovation ecosystem including Professor V V Raghavendra Sai, Department of Applied Mechanics and Biomedical Engineering, IIT Madras, Ganesh Shankar, Founder, FluxGen Technologies, Shravan Shankar, Co-Founder, Climake, Muthu Kumar, Founder, Sustains Engineering Solutions LLP, and Leo Bernard, Plant Engineering, Ashok Leyland. The session was moderated by Hiran Vedam, Business Fellow, Breakthrough Energy.