Mumbai: Indian Institute of Technology Bombay’s (IIT-B) well-established science and technology festival, to be held between January 2 and 4, will not only showcase some of the latest breakthroughs in these fields but also interesting initiatives that contribute towards a better society.
During this 18th edition of Techfest, the Smart City Challenge will be held, which aims to engage the youth of the country and come up with smart solutions to develop cities. The challenge has been designed with the idea of bringing together technology, government and the student fraternity to make cities more efficient, sustainable and liveable, and improve the quality of life of an increasing urbanised population.
“Imagine if your city could talk — if it could give live status updates on traffic patterns, pollution levels, parking spaces, water, power and utilities,” says Anuraj Gupta, Media and Marketing Coordinator, IIT-Bombay. “Imagine how that kind of information could improve the economic and environmental health of the city. Imagine how it could improve working conditions and productivity of the people who maintain the city.” Techfest aims to provide a credible platform to students to come up with ideas and solutions that are sustainable, equitable and people-friendly. For instance, if students chose to participate in the competition under the topic of health care and hygiene, they would have to submit their ideas to tackle the woeful lack of public health network and search for long-term solutions to the present unplanned waste disposal methods.
Said to be Asia’s largest science and technology festival patronised by UNESCO and UNICEF, Techfest boasts a footfall of more than 135,000 and an outreach of 2,500 colleges across India and 500 overseas.
Organisers think that the segment that will attract the maximum number of youngsters will be that of robots and technologies built in the most advanced research facilities of international universities and organisations. The variety of genres and experiences that each and every exhibit has to offer will have anyone mesmerised, according to Gupta. Some of the attractions include the Bionico Hand, Bio inspired flying machines and the Beach Bot.
The design of the Bionico Hand, a prosthetic arm designed to assist amputees, is supported by the Science Department of the French Embassy in India. It brings together an international team for the construction of a prosthetic limb at low cost due to standardised parts and open sources, which is easy to repair and therefore accessible to people with limited financial resources.
While the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, has developed the Beach Bot, the world’s first autonomous robot that can build large scale sand art, Bio-inspired flying devices by the Imperial College of London focus on search and rescue operations, inspection and in-situ repair with flying robots.
