Ludhiana, Aug 5 (KNN) Chamber of Industry and Commercial Undertakings (CICU), Guru Naka Dev Engineering College (GNDEC), and Apex Cluster Development Services have signed a Memorandum  of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate in accelerating industry-academia interaction.

The MoU was signed during the one day interactive ‘Industry-Academia Meet’ on Innovation to sensitize the stakeholder and promote innovation among MSMEs fostering Industry-Academia linkage in Ludhiana region.

The event was jointly organized by GNDEC, MSME INNO project of The Deutsche Gesellschaft Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ India) and (CICU) in Ludhiana under the ambit of bilateral project ‘Program for Modernisation and Innovation Promotion in MSME in India (MSME INNO)’ being implemented by Ministry of MSME and GIZ.

Under this project supported by GIZ, 6 teams consisting 23 students and 3 faculty coordinators from GNE College, Ludhiana has taken up 6 projects on SME live problems of local industries.

These students are being mobilized through CICU, an industry association to visit and interact with owner/operators in SME units to understand the problems. Based on the interaction, students will conceptualize the approach and methodology to develop the solution and interact with SMEs at various stages of the solution development for operational improvements.

Further, considering the importance of developing solution on SME live problems through industry- academia student projects, CICU representative announced to create revolving fund for supporting development of solutions by academia. Primarily, upfront financial assistance will be provided to student teams for development of prototype solution for respective SME problem.

After successful deployment of prototype in SME unit, the amount will be recovered from beneficial SME unit, hence the fund will be revolving in nature.

Representative from District Industries Centre(DIC), Government of Punjab shared overview of various programs/initiative by the government to support innovation and promote industry- academia linkage.

He touched upon aspects of PRISM program and applauded the work done by students of GNDEC in past assignment related to mapping of electroplating units in Ludhiana.

Stakeholder from regional MSMEs, industry association, Central Tool Room (CTR), MSME DI, District Industries Centre(DIC), regional technical centres and faculty/students of GNDEC participated in this event.