SIIC is creating wave of innovation in UP and beyond, supplementing the effort of Government to make UP one of the attractive destinations for investment and innovation. Check out these facts. The number of active startups at SIIC, IIT Kanpur has grown from 35 to 150. A good indicator of a standing of an IIT is where the top-ranking students in the JEE are going. Similarly, a good indicator of an Incubator’s ranking is where the good startups are going. With large number of incubators across the country, startups have opportunity to choose an incubator of their liking. And the demand to associate with SIIC has been continuously on the rise among startups.
Getting into SIIC is competitive process and only those startups with reasonably advanced thought process and significant potential manage to secure a seat in SIIC. This has ensured high quality of startups. Only one out of every 25 startups who apply to SIIC are eventually admitted. In fact, in some ways, making it to SIIC is becoming competitive like getting into IIT itself.
Annual startup fest
This was also evidenced during the recently conducted Annual Startup Festival conducted by SIIC called “Abhivyakti”. Abhivyakti 2023 was held at IIT Kanpur on 4th and 5th March 2023. ‘Abhivyakti’ in Hindi means to express an apt name for a platform which has given startups an opportunity to express themselves through their innovation. Abhivyakti 2023 was noticeable because of the range of new innovations that startups have been able to create. Nearly 100 startups showcased their products and several of them were in advanced stages of business development which made several investors and business mentors to take notice and show interest.
This is a big jump from around 30 startups which have participated in such shows of the past. Startups ranged from cyber to drones, agri-tech to defence, climate and sustainability to med-tech. The technologies which were showcased were also remarkable because the problems which they were attempting to solve were very relevant to the context of developing society like India. These solutions will not get developed int he West. But once successful, they have potential to meet the requirements of threefourths of humanity living in the developing world. Admiring the kind of passion and motivation of the founders and promoters of this startup, one cannot but feel that at least some of them are potential unicorns of tomorrow.
It’s not only about scale which was remarkable in this year’s Abhivyakti. The impact on society which these technologies have potential to create made Abhivyakti 2023 so powerful. Let me talk about some of the work that is going on at IIT Kanpur and SIIC, which relates to defence.
Quality stealth material
RF Nanocomposites, which was started by Vishal Kumar Chakradhary, demonstrated very high-quality stealth material which has the capability to absorb electromagnetic radiations of a wide range of frequencies up to 18 GHz and capacity to go up to 35 GHz with over 90% of absorption. Vishal Choudhary is now working with both telecom and defence companies in the area of stealth. This technology will have great relevance for the new-generation fighter aircraft AMCA being developed by DRDO, as well as stealth drones, and also to prevent the interference from electromagnetic devices kept in proximity.
Professor Srinivas of the Chemistry Department and his team of students have created high-energy pyrotechnics that resemble explosives of the CL-20 type, something India has never been able to do before. They are in talks with Munitions India Limited to provide the Indian military forces with this very high-grade explosive as soon as possible.
Prof. Abhishek’s Endure Air Private Limited develops cutting-edge Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)/ drone solutions that are optimised for user requirements for novel airframes, autopilots, communication framework, monitoring stations, and artificial intelligence (AI) tools. It offers top-notch aerial robotic solutions. Forensic CyberTech Pvt Ltd focuses on digital forensics and cyber security for all source analysis for customers in law enforcement and business.
