20th November 2020.The TiE UP chapter in association with Technopark@iitk organized an hour-long webinar to address the challenges faced by the MSMEs and the various collaboration opportunities that exist with IIT Kanpur for product upgradation and technical solutions. The main speaker for the event was Ms. Reema Mittal, Chief Operating Officer, Technopark@iitk who highlighted the philosophy behind setting up of IIT Kanpur Research and Technology Park of pushing technology up the value chainand targeting higher Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) from 1 to 9. Conceived under ‘Make in India’ and ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’ vision, research parks in India are supported by the government of India to accelerate industry-academia collaborations and to take them to the next level.

MSMEs or any other company can engage with Technopark by either setting up their R&D base in its premises or availing annual affiliate membership. And this collaboration will open the entire IITK research ecosystem,built over a span of 60 years, for the industry to tap into. The benefits of collaborating with Technopark are numerous ranging from working with IITK students as a potential workforce to accessing IITK’s central research facilities and equipment, licensing and commercializing IITK Patent database to writing joint proposals with faculty for government grants.

In the second half of the session, three more speakers joined the platform – Mr Kunal Kasera, TruFarm Co.; Mr Ansar Lone, VTOL Aviation India and Mr Anuj Awasthi, Kanopy Techno Solutions. The three speakers shared their varied experiences of leveraging the intellectual and research infrastructure strengths of IIT Kanpur and how their companies are creating cutting-edge technology solutions and products in collaboration with the institute faculty and students. VTOL Aviation and Kanopy Techno Solutions have set up their R&D bases in Technopark@iitk while TruFarm is collaborating as an affiliate member.

Towards the end, Prof. Avinash Kumar Agarwal, Professor In-charge, Technopark, made the closing remarks, Technopark@iitk is inviting industry to work with IITK faculty and students and co-develop technologies and solutions addressing the critical needs of the country.