Focus on innovation

CHENNAI: The IIT-M’s four day technical extravaganza, SHAASTRA 2011, saw students from all over India participate with gusto, not only for the sake of competition, but also to learn and innovate for the betterment of the world. Besides the fun and the hands-on events, a lot of innovative thinking was encouraged throughout the fest.As part of the SHAASTRA impact events, the Shaastra Social Innovation Challenge is expected to have a direct impact on rural India. The challenge is to create an innovative solar cooker that could replace the traditional wood based cooking source. The design parameters are open ended, and the prototype will need to be constructed of durable materials which should easily accessible and available in most villages across India. Shaastra will field the best designs for the Solar Cooker at the Global Challenge, where the top design will have the opportunity to travel to Rajasthan and build their designs in the villages for field testing.The two-stage Inter University Sustainability Challenge tested the students’ ability to make their campus sustainable.  Keeping in mind the current scenario in educational institutes, Shaastra identified a number of green projects covering diverse themes like energy, water, waste-management, social media & awareness and community. Depending on the number of projects completed and their difficulty level, the top six teams were invited to IIT-M for the final round.The symposium this year concentrated on sustainable technologies. With the objective of creating leaders better sensitised to evaluate challenging problems faced today, the symposium provided a platform for the participants to develop individually and realize their potential as leaders of tomorrow. They were mentored by leaders in their respective fields, and will be privy to a plethora of lectures and video conferences with leading personalities such as Nachiket More, Jayaprakash Narayan, Balaji Sampath and Kentaro Toyoma.Workshops on subjects like ethical hacking, astrophotography, nanomaterials, android application development, parallel programming workshop, finance and aeronautics were also held.