Meet calls for academia-startup collaboration

Madurai: Around 150 academicians and researchers from engineering colleges, along with industry leaders from Madurai, Dindigul, Theni, Virudhunagar, Sivaganga, and Ramanathapuram districts, took part in the ‘DeepTech' sensitisation drive held on Thursday in Madurai.

Organised by Tamil Nadu Technology (iTNT) Hub functioning under the state IT & Digital Services department, in collaboration with Anna University regional campus at Madurai, the event was presided over by IT minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan.

Vanitha Venugopal, CEO of iTNT Hub, highlighted how the programme would aid in building a democratised DeepTech research and development, and innovation ecosystem across Tamil Nadu. The participants were debriefed about the Joint Innovation Gateway for Synergistic Startup – Academic – Industry – Investor Work (JIGSAW) platform launched last year. JIGSAW has since emerged as an ecosystem with over 6,000 researchers from 137 engineering colleges and more than 250 Deep and Emerging Tech startups in Tamil Nadu.

Participants were encouraged to be part of the highly collaborative JIGSAW platform to enable greater collaboration, innovation, and investment in deep and emerging technologies. Padma Shri Rajagopalan Vasudevan, a scientist best known for his innovative way of building roads using plastic waste, delivered the special address and shared his experiences, highlighting the role of innovation, patenting, and commercialisation of technologies for the larger cause.

Lingadurai, dean of Anna University regional campus, and Kottaisamy from Thiagarajar Engineering College, emphasised the commercialisation of research and the role to be played by academia.