New Delhi, Sept 18 (KNN) With a view to bring innovation to the ground level to address the general issues and issues specific to Himalayan region, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee has launched the Design Innovation Centre (DIC) named Navonmesh with a project outlay of Rs 10 crores.

Funded by Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India, the centre aims to address issues of the Himalayan Region using locally available resources as well as cater to National Priorities.

Inaugurating the centre, Director-IIT Roorkee, Ajit K. Chaturvedi, said “The technical/non-technical colleges/institutes and schools can involve themselves in mentoring and supporting innovation and design activities, to address general issues & issues specific to the Himalayan region.”

He said that this will help Indian farmers and develop innovative means & ways to enhance their growth & productivity.

The centre will usher in a new culture among the stakeholders of the state to address the difficulties faced by the common people in their daily life. The emphasis is on the development of a design culture and interdisciplinary work. All infrastructural support will be provided to the centre to make it one of the leading centers, he added.

He also emphasized on exploring the unique opportunity of taking technologies to the farmers of the state through the KVK (Krishi Vikas Kendra) network developed by the partner institute College of Technology, G B Pant University of Agriculture and Technology.

He further added, “DIC, IIT Roorkee will operate in the Hub and Spoke model in which IIT Roorkee will be the Hub institute with three other premier institutes in the region acting as spokes namely, National Institute of Technology Uttarakhand (NITUK), Indian Institute of Management, Kashipur (IIM Kashipur) and College of Technology, GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology (GBPUA&T), Pantnagar.”

While explaining the concept of innovation centre, IIT Delhi, Head of Department, PVM Rao said that the centre of design would make tools and technology accessible to make human life easier while solving many environment-related problems.

The key objective of DIC is to develop innovative designs primarily to address the local issues which need low-cost solutions and to nurture and advance the culture of design and innovation in the region to improve the quality of life.

The DIC aims to produce region-specific products and will support innovative proposals for product development.

The DIC has already identified several products like green furniture using the forest waste to be developed under its aegis.

Such innovations will help minimizing hazards due to forest fire, advanced crop harvester to make the life the farmers easy.

Further, the center will focus on taking the laboratory scale developments to the common man as well as the relevant industries through its schemes like P2P (Prayogshala to Prayogkshetra) and U2U (Udbhavan to Utpadan).

The DIC will also provide study programs for one and two years in the field of design and innovation.

Additionally, it has some unique outreach programs such as COMAL (Common Man to Laboratory), under which DIC will connect with the common man, who often has innovative ideas, but usually gets deprived of proper mentoring, to turn his ideas to reality.