New India-UK Project To Use Quantum Power to Boost Soil Health and Food Security

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s upcoming visit to Mumbai is spotlighting a major India-UK research partnership in quantum computing and biotechnology. At the heart of this collaboration is a joint project between Imperial College London and IIT Bombay, aiming to use quantum simulations to improve crop resilience and soil health in climate-vulnerable regions.

Researchers are modeling how plants and soil bacteria communicate, using quantum computing to simulate gene regulation and microbial signaling. Strigolactones, a plant chemicals that act as messengers between roots and microbes. The joint India-UK team is studying how synthetic versions of Strigolactones and biochar can enhance these interactions.

IIT Bombay contributes microbial ecology and genomics, while Imperial brings bioinformatics and quantum simulation capabilities. The aim is to boost natural processes that help crops thrive in arid and extreme weather conditions.

Quantum Roots: How India and the UK Are Using Quantum Computing to Reinvent Agriculture

In a world grappling with climate extremes, a groundbreaking India-UK collaboration is turning to quantum computing—not for finance or cryptography, but for farming. At the heart of this effort is a joint research project between Imperial College London and IIT Bombay, aiming to decode the invisible language between plant roots and soil microbes to build climate-resilient agriculture.

From Silicon to Soil: The Quantum Leap

Led by Dr. Po-Heng (Henry) Lee at Imperial and Dr. Indrajit Chakraborty at IIT Bombay, the project uses quantum simulations to model how plants communicate with microbes in the soil. The focus is on strigolactones—plant hormones that act as chemical messengers, triggering microbial responses that affect nutrient uptake, drought resistance, and overall soil health.

We’re not just simulating molecules—we’re simulating relationships, says Dr. Lee. Quantum computing lets us explore how microbial communities respond to plant signals under stress, and how we might enhance those responses.

The Science Behind the Soil

• Synthetic strigolactones and biochar are being tested to amplify beneficial microbial activity.
• IIT Bombay contributes microbial genomics and soil ecology expertise.
• Imperial College builds quantum circuit models to simulate microbial gene expression and signal transduction.

Strategic Roots: India-UK Tech Diplomacy

• The project is a flagship under the India-UK Technology Security Initiative (TSI), signed in 2024.
• Funded by the India Connect Fund, supporting up to 25 joint research efforts annually.
• Will be spotlighted during Keir Starmer’s visit to Mumbai for the Global Fintech Fest 2025.

Why It Matters

• Food Security: Quantum-enhanced soil treatments could boost yields in climate-stressed regions.
• Climate Adaptation: Understanding microbial resilience helps design farming systems that thrive under stress.
• Tech Transfer: Sets a precedent for applying frontier technologies to grassroots challenges.

The Bigger Picture

This isn’t just about quantum computing—it’s about reimagining agriculture as a system of intelligent, adaptive relationships. By simulating the unseen conversations beneath our feet, researchers hope to unlock new pathways to sustainability.

As Dr. Chakraborty puts it, We’re using the most advanced tools in physics to solve the oldest problem in civilization: how to grow food in a changing world.

IIT Bombay’s BETIC Gets ₹70 Cr Boost from ICICI Foundation to Advance Biomedical R&D

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth (ICICI Foundation), the CSR arm of ICICI Bank, have forged a partnership to expand the biomedical innovation hub at the country’s premier technology and engineering institute. Under this partnership, ICICI Foundation has pledged ₹70 crore to set up additional floors at the Biomedical Engineering and Technology Innovation Centre (BETIC) at IIT Bombay and equip this area with advanced facilities.

The MoU was signed by Prof. Shireesh Kedare, Director, IIT Bombay and Mr. Sanjay Datta, President, ICICI Foundation in presence of Mr. Pradeep Kumar Sinha, Chairman, ICICI Bank.

The new floors, named ‘IIT-ICICI BETIC Hub’, will significantly expand IIT Bombay’s capabilities in biomedical engineering, increasing its space five-fold to 19,700 sq. ft. The hub will foster collaboration among researchers, clinicians, and industry leaders to develop affordable, cutting-edge medical devices and diagnostic solutions. It will be equipped with state-of-the-art resources for product development, medical grade manufacturing, safety testing, inspection, and packaging. This enhanced ecosystem will support med-tech startups and companies, train professionals in healthcare innovation, and generate high-value jobs, ultimately benefiting millions of patients.

Speaking on the collaboration, Prof. Shireesh Kedare, Director, IIT Bombay, said, "This partnership exemplifies how industry-academia alliances can drive innovation towards real-world impact. With ICICI Foundation’s generous support, IIT Bombay is poised to revolutionise biomedical research and technology, addressing critical healthcare gaps in India, fostering home-grown solutions that are accessible, affordable, and scalable.”

Commenting on the partnership, Mr. Pradeep Kumar Sinha, Chairman, ICICI Bank, said, “Healthcare is a key focus at ICICI Foundation’s CSR initiatives. India’s unique healthcare challenges -- high disease burden, vast rural populations, and affordability constraints—demand indigenous innovations in biomedical, tailored to its needs. Homegrown advancement will not only reduce dependency on imports but also foster cost-effective, cutting-edge medical solutions that can empower healthcare professionals and benefit millions across the country. The partnership between ICICI Foundation and IIT Bombay aims to meet this objective. The ‘IITB-ICICI BETIC Hub’ will facilitate the development of indigenous medical innovations ensuring affordable healthcare solutions to patients. We are delighted to collaborate with IIT Bombay to drive a meaningful change in the healthcare ecosystem.”

So far, ICICI Foundation has positively impacted over 2.5 million lives to receive treatment in 550 hospitals across the country through its initiatives in the healthcare sector. This includes building capacity in curative care, including cancer care, cardiac care, eye care, trauma and emergency care.

About BETIC:

BETIC is the only lab in an academic setting in India with ISO 13485 certification—an internationally recognised quality management system standard for medical devices. It has identified 450 unmet needs after detailed discussions with hundreds of doctors across various specialisations, created 240 novel prototypes, and has filed 70 patents. It has developed 43 medical devices, out of which 23 have been taken to market by startups formed at BETIC; while the remaining 20 devices have been licensed to Indian companies. A recipient of 61 prestigious awards, BETIC has impacted several million lives till date. For more details on BETIC’s work, visit Medical Device Innovation –BETIC, Mumbai

QS World University Rankings 2025: IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay in Top-150

The QS World University Rankings for 2025 have been released. As of the rankings, no Indian universities have been listed in the top 100. The highest-ranking Indian institutions are IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi, both of which have made significant improvements but are positioned within the top 150. IIT Bombay is ranked 118th and IIT Delhi is at 150th globally.

However Indian universities have shown significant improvement in the QS World University Rankings 2025. Here are some highlights:

• IIT Bombay has climbed from 149th to 118th globally, leading among Indian institutions.
• IIT Delhi has made a remarkable jump of 47 ranks, moving from 197th to 150th.
• IISc Bangalore has improved from 225th to 211th.
• IIT Kharagpur has risen from 271st to 222nd
• IIT Madras has leaped from 285th to 227th
• The University of Delhi has made one of the most significant advancements, rising 79 ranks from 407th to 328th

Overall, 61% of Indian universities have risen in rank, reflecting the country's growing influence in the global higher education landscape. The improvements are attributed to advancements in research, but challenges remain in internationalization and faculty-student ratios. 

In the Global scenario, here are the top ten universities in the world, according to the rankings :

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US

2. Imperial College London, UK

3. University of Oxford, UK

4. Harvard University, US

5. University of Cambridge, UK

6. Stanford University, US

7. ETH Zürich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland

8. National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore

9. University College London, UK

10. California Institute of Technology (Caltech), US

Notably, Imperial College London has made a significant leap, moving up four places, largely due to their improvements in the 'Sustainability' category and various research metrics

For the thirteenth consecutive year, MIT has retained its position at the top of the list. The rankings this year are the largest to date, featuring 1,500 universities from 106 countries and territories. They also incorporate both employability and sustainability factors into their methodology for the first time.

Full List – Here

TCS, IIT Bombay to Develop India’s 1st Quantum Tech based Tool for Semiconductor Chip Examination

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has partnered with the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-Bombay) to develop India's first Quantum Diamond Microchip Imager. This advanced sensing tool aims to unlock new levels of precision in the examination of semiconductor chips, reduce chip failures, and improve the energy efficiency of electronic devices.

The Quantum Diamond Microchip Imager is designed for semiconductor chip imaging. It will help improve quality control of semiconductor chips, leading to better product reliability, safety, and energy efficiency in electrical devices.

Over the next two years, experts from TCS will collaborate with Dr. Kasturi Saha, Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT-Bombay, to develop the quantum imaging platform in the PQuest Lab.

Semiconductor chips play a crucial role in modern electronic devices across various industries, including communications, computing, healthcare, military systems, transportation, and clean energy. They act as the "brains" of these devices, enabling data processing and task completion.

This collaboration aligns with the Government of India's National Quantum Mission, which aims to position India as a global leader in quantum technology. The mission focuses on quantum sensing and metrology, among other areas.

Dr. Kasturi Saha expressed excitement about the collaboration, emphasizing the potential to drive innovation and transform sectors such as electronics and healthcare. Dr. Harrick Vin, Chief Technology Officer at TCS, highlighted the transformative impact of this initiative on various industries, from electronics to healthcare and beyond.

By combining their expertise, TCS and IIT-Bombay are contributing to the ongoing Second Quantum Revolution, which emphasizes cutting-edge capabilities in sensing, computing, and communication technologies. This collaboration represents a significant step toward India's quantum technology leadership and a brighter future for all.

IBM and Meta Launch International AI Alliance with 50+ Members Including IIT Bombay, Intel and NASA

AI Alliance Launches as an International Community of Leading Technology Developers, Researchers, and Adopters Collaborating Together to Advance Open, Safe, Responsible AI

India's IIT Bombay and Insurtech startup Roadzen among the members

IBM and Meta has just launched the AI Alliance in collaboration with over 50 Founding Members and Collaborators globally including AMD, Anyscale, CERN, Cerebras, Cleveland Clinic, Cornell University, Dartmouth, Dell Technologies, EPFL, ETH, Hugging Face, Imperial College London, Intel, INSAIT, Linux Foundation, MLCommons, MOC Alliance operated by Boston University and Harvard University, NASA, NSF, Oracle, Partnership on AI, Red Hat, Roadzen, ServiceNow, Sony Group, Stability AI, University of California Berkeley, University of Illinois, University of Notre Dame, The University of Tokyo, Yale University and others

AI advancements are leading to new opportunities that can improve how we work, live, learn and interact with one another. Open and transparent innovation is essential to empower a broad spectrum of AI researchers, builders, and adopters with the information and tools needed to harness these advancements in ways that prioritize safety, diversity, economic opportunity and benefits to all.

While there are many individual companies, start-ups, researchers, governments, and others who are committed to open science and open technologies and want to participate in the new wave of AI innovation, more collaboration and information sharing will help the community innovate faster and more inclusively, and identify specific risks and mitigate those risks before putting a product into the world.

That is why, the AI Alliance is launched – a group of leading organizations across industry, startup, academia, research and government coming together to support open innovation and open science in AI. The AI Alliance is action oriented and decidedly international, designed to create opportunities everywhere through a diverse range of institutions that can shape the evolution of AI in ways that better reflect the needs and the complexity of our societies.

The AI Alliance is focused on fostering an open community and enabling developers and researchers to accelerate responsible innovation in AI while ensuring scientific rigor, trust, safety, security, diversity and economic competitiveness. By bringing together leading developers, scientists, academic institutions, companies, and other innovators, we will pool resources and knowledge to address safety concerns while providing a platform for sharing and developing solutions that fit the needs of researchers, developers, and adopters around the world.

Initial ohiectives of the AI Alliance –

• Develop and deploy benchmarks and evaluation standards, tools, and other resources that enable the responsible development and use of AI systems at global scale, including the creation of a catalog of vetted safety, security and trust tools. Support the advocacy and enablement of these tools with the developer community for model and application development.
• Responsibly advance the ecosystem of open foundation models with diverse modalities, including highly capable multilingual, multi-modal, and science models that can help address society-wide challenges in climate, education, and beyond.
• Foster a vibrant AI hardware accelerator ecosystem by boosting contributions and adoption of essential enabling software technology.
• Support global AI skills building and exploratory research. Engage the academic community to support researchers and students to learn and contribute to essential AI model and tool research projects.
• Develop educational content and resources to inform the public discourse and policymakers on benefits, risks, solutions and precision regulation for AI.
• Launch initiatives that encourage open development of AI in safe and beneficial ways, and host events to explore AI use cases and showcase how Alliance members are using open technology in AI responsibly and for good.

What is the AI Alliance

To ensure open innovation in AI benefits everyone and that it is built responsibly, the AI Alliance consists of a broad range of organizations that are working across aspects of AI education, research, development and deployment, and governance.

The AI Alliance is –

• The creators of the tooling driving AI benchmarking, trust and validation metrics and best practices, and application creation such as MLPerf, Hugging Face, LangChain, LlamaIndex, and open-source AI toolkits for explainability, privacy, adversarial robustness, and fairness evaluation.
• The universities and science agencies that educate and support generation after generation of AI scientists and engineers and push the frontiers of AI research through open science.
• The builders of the hardware and infrastructure that supports AI training and applications – from the needed GPUs to custom AI accelerators and cloud platforms;
• The champions of frameworks that drive platform software including PyTorch, Transformers, Diffusers, Kubernetes, Ray, Hugging Face Text generation inference and Parameter Efficient Fine Tuning.
• The creators of some of today’s most used open models including Llama2, Stable Diffusion, StarCoder, Bloom, and many others.

Besides IBM and Meta, IBM and the other 50-plus members of the AI Alliance include leading organizations across industry, government and academia. Partners and collaborators include:

1. Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)
2. Aitomatic
3. AMD
4. Anyscale
5. Cerebras
6. CERN
7. Cleveland Clinic
8. Cornell University
9. Dartmouth
10. Dell Technologies
11. Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
12. ETH Zurich
13. Fast.ai
14. Fenrir, Inc.
15. FPT Software
16. Hebrew University of Jerusalem
17. Hugging Face
18. IBM
19. Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)
20. Imperial College London
21. Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
22. Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
23. Intel
24. Keio University
25. LangChain
26. LlamaIndex
27. Linux Foundation
28. Mass Open Cloud Alliance, operated by Boston University and Harvard
29. Meta
30. Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence
31. MLCommons
32. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 
33. National Science Foundation
34. New York University
35. NumFOCUS
36. OpenTeams
37. Oracle
38. Partnership on AI
39. Quansight
40. Red Hat
41. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
42. Roadzen
43. Sakana AI
44. SB Intuitions
45. ServiceNow
46. Silo AI
47. Simons Foundation
48. Sony Group
49. Stability AI
50. Together AI
51. TU Munich
52. UC Berkeley College of Computing, Data Science, and Society
53. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
54. The University of Notre Dame
55. The University of Texas at Austin
56. The University of Tokyo
57. Yale University

How the AI Alliance Will Work

The AI Alliance will begin its work with the formation of member-driven working groups across all major topical areas listed above. The Alliance will also establish a governing board and technical oversight committee dedicated to advancing the above project areas, as well as establishing overall project standards and guidelines.

In addition to bringing together leading developers, scientists, academics, students, and business leaders in the field of artificial intelligence, the AI Alliance will plan to partner with important existing initiatives from governments, non-profit and civil society organizations who are doing valuable and aligned work in the AI space.

To learn more about the Alliance, visit here: https://thealliance.ai

NITI Aayog Releases IIT Bombay-designed Analytical Tools for Managing Climate Change and Exploring Net Zero Pathways

IESS is a user-friendly and Interactive Energy Modelling tool that takes into account the Green Policy Initiatives and explores Possible Decarbonisation Pathways towards Net-Zero

A Revamped India Energy Security Scenarios (IESS) 2047 (IESS 2047 V3.0) to assess the integrated impact of various green energy policies of Government of India was released by NITI Aayog on Thursday.

An open-source tool, IESS incorporates several policies related to alternative energy resources like Green Hydrogen, Energy Storage, Renewable Purchase Obligations, PM-KUSUM, offshore wind strategy, Electric Vehicle policy, Energy efficiency, etc. Assessing the demand and supply of energy in the country, the tool helps in analysing emissions, cost, land, and water requirements till 2047.

The web version of the tool offers user-friendly graphical representations of energy demand and supply scenarios for the country based on user choices. The results of some of the illustrative scenarios from IESS are shown below:

With an aim of making this technology available to the people, this version of IESS is easily downloadable and facilitates users to generate their own pathways. It will help researchers and think tanks to develop user-specific scenarios and the option of customised applications on the basis of share of industry/services/agriculture, population, the pace of urbanisation, end-use energy demand etc.

IESS 2047 is a user-friendly interactive tool that can help ministries/ departments to develop a variety of energy transition scenarios to achieve net-zero. The tool is flexible enough to provide many permutations and combinations of net-zero pathways. It provides capabilities to compute the energy needs and estimates of the country and hence reduce India’s dependency on external agencies for the estimates.

Designed with the help of IIT Bombay, the revamped IESS 2047 will be updated on yearly basis. The baseline has been standardised at 2020 and calibrated up to 2022.

Shri Suman Bery, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog appreciated the indigenization of IESS 2047 and termed the tool a big facilitator in achieving net-zero target by 2070.

Shri BVR Subrahmanyam, CEO, NITI Aayog termed IESS as a national asset and an outstanding example of the research and development being undertaken at NITI Aayog. Emphasising upon the fine balance between justified growth aspirations and sustainability, he said that it is important to have such tools and data platforms for holistic planning and policy making at national and state level.

Tecnimont Supports IIT Bombay Educational Outreach Initiative WiSE to Promote Participation of Girls from Rural India in Science and Engineering Disciplines

Tecnimont Private Limited (TCMPL), a subsidiary of Milan, Italy-based MAIRE Group, today announced its funding support for Women in Science, Engineering (WiSE) from rural parts of India. This is initiative involving a total of 165 girls is led by Prof. Rajesh Zele from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) to encourage young girls from rural parts of India to pursue higher education in STEM through a week-long intensive residential program at IIT Bombay.

This activity is part of MAIRE Group's sustainability strategy, specifically in the creation of value for the territories and communities where MAIRE operates through corporate social responsibility projects and initiatives.

Excited with the collaboration, Valentina Grieco, MAIRE Group CSR Senior Specialist said, "Project WiSE is driven with a special focus on the rural areas from India, such as Maharashtra, Bihar, Odisha, to help the adolescent girls build their confidence in subjects like science and mathematics. While the rural adolescent girls face challenging situations in continuing their education, TCMPL strives to make education interesting for the students and parents to ensure enrolment of girls continues in the higher standards."

"TCMPL is committed to helping the communities where they operate," said Prof. Zele, "With their support, we were able to include students from remote areas across the nation. After the week-long program, the girls will continue to uh with one another, and their mentors at IIT Bombay through online sessions. This will help shape their future and career decisions," concluded Prof. Zele.

About Wise Program

For more information about this initiative, you can visit: https://wiseapp.in

About Tecnimont Private Limited

Tecnimont Private Limited (TCMPL) is a subsidiary of MAIRE Group and serves as the Group’s centre of Engineering excellence for India. With more than 2,000 employees, TCMPL is headquartered in Mumbai and has support offices in New Delhi, Middle East, Abu Dhabi and Malaysia. It is a leader in Engineering and Main Contracting for the natural resources transformation industry. With a legacy now spanning six decades, TCMPL has exhaustive experience in executing more than 400 projects globally.

MAIRE S.p.A. leads a technology and engineering group that develops and implements innovative solutions to enable the Energy Transition. We offer Sustainable Technology Solutions and Integrated E&C Solutions in nitrogen fertilizers, hydrogen, circular carbon, fuels, chemicals, and polymers. MAIRE creates value in 45 countries and relies on 6,500 employees, supported by over 20,000 people engaged in its projects worldwide. MAIRE is listed on the Milan Stock Exchange (ticker “MAIRE”). For further information: www.mairetecnimont.com

India Releases National Climate Research Agenda 2030 and Beyond

India’s National Climate Research agenda was released at the inauguration of the two-day International Climate Research Conclave (ICRC-2023) at DST’s Centre of Excellence in Climate Studies at IIT Bombay on 26 May 2023, paving the way forward for coordinating national efforts towards understanding and addressing climate change 2030 and beyond.

Secretary, Department of Science and Technology (DST), Dr. S. Chandrasekhar, highlighted that the damage caused by climate change has already taken its toll, and our response has been delayed. He pointed out that valuable lessons to tackle the situation can be taken from our experiences of positive changes in the environment due to altered human behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said these serve as a reminder that if we act responsibly, there is a real possibility of passing on a sustainable planet to future generations.

Dr. Chandrasekhar emphasised that addressing climate change is not the responsibility of climate scientists alone. “It is a collective responsibility that extends to all individuals and sectors of society. Climate change is influenced by peripheral activities surrounding climate science, and it becomes the duty of scientists to identify the areas that have the most significant impact on the climate and work towards mitigating them,” he stressed at the conclave jointly organised by The Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Ministry of Earth Sciences and hosted by DST’s Centre of Excellence in Climate Studies at IIT Bombay.

“By acknowledging the collective responsibility and adopting sustainable practices across various sectors, we can make meaningful progress in mitigating climate change and preserving a healthy planet for future generations. It is a call to action for everyone to play their part in creating a more sustainable and resilient world,” he added while releasing the report on “India’s Climate Research Agenda: 2030 & Beyond’.

Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Dr. M. Ravichandran, emphasised the importance of understanding the cryosphere and the implications of climate change. He highlighted the importance of formulating policy decisions to address various aspects such as water resources, extreme rainfall, heat waves, and marine waves. These complexities need to be quantified and communicated with reduced uncertainty to facilitate better policy decision-making.

Dr. Ravichandran underscored the interconnectedness between different regions and bodies, including the Arctic, Antarctic, and Himalayas, as they directly impact water bodies. Recognizing this, the conclave aims to generate a multitude of recommendations that will benefit the country as a whole.

“This conclave serves as a platform to discuss and propose recommendations that will contribute to effective policy formulation. By addressing these complex challenges and providing actionable insights, the conclave aims to enhance policy decision-making and benefit the nation as a whole in its quest for a more sustainable and resilient future,” he added.

Over 200 climate scientists, students, experts, and policymakers from different parts of the country and around the globe are participating in the International Climate Research Conclave (ICRC-2023) to discuss India’s recent progress in climate research and its agenda and vision for 2030. The conclave also discussed a long-term research agenda for the country in the priority areas of climate research and plans for creating a Climate Consortium of several departments and ministries of the Government of India for facilitating climate Research.

Dr. Akhilesh Gupta, Senior Adviser, DST and Secretary, Science Engineering Research Board (SERB), highlighted the significance of the day, reflecting on the historic celebration of the 10th anniversary of the ICDP (International Centre for Development and Performance) Centre of Excellence at IIT Bombay. This center, established in 2012 as the first Center of Excellence by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), has since paved the way for a broader climate change program.

Referring to the progress made over the years, Dr. Gupta said that today, there are not only 12 Centers of Excellence but also 20 major programs dedicated to climate change research. This extensive network encompasses a staggering 1,400 institutes where climate change studies and research take place, with recent expansions to private institutions.

“This event is, however, immensely significant as its purpose is to unveil the National Climate Research agenda -- a crucial step forward in guiding and coordinating National efforts towards understanding and addressing climate change,” Dr. Gupta explained.

“It is already evident that India is making significant strides in climate research and demonstrating its commitment to combat this global challenge. The conclave serves as a platform for collaboration, knowledge sharing, and setting the course for future research endeavors, all in pursuit of a more sustainable and resilient future,” Dr. Gupta added.

UIDAI - IIT Bombay Partner to Develop Touchless Biometric Capture System

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has joined hands with Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-Bombay) to develop a robust touchless biometric capture system for easier usage by people anytime, anywhere.

As part of the memorandum of understanding, UIDAI and IIT Bombay will carry out joint research to build a mobile capture system for fingerprints along with liveness model integrated with the capture system.

UIDAI is statuary body that issue Unique Identification numbers (UID), named as "Aadhaar", to all residents of India, and Aadhaar is termed as most sophisticated & world's largest biometric ID system. 

Under the partnership with IIT Bombay, the touchless biometric capture system, once developed and operational, will allow fingerprint authentication from home alike face authentication. The new system is expected to capture multiple fingerprints at one go and aid authentication success rate further. The new system once in place will be an addition to the existing facilities available in the Aadhaar ecosystem.

Such a system will use an intelligent combination of signal/image processing and machine learning/deep learning with a common mobile phone available to most citizens with a good user experience. This will be a step forward in making Universal authenticator a reality.

The collaboration between UIDAI and IIT Bombay through its National Centre of Excellence in Technology for Internal Security (NCETIS) will lead to joint engagement in research and development (R&D) for development of a system for UIDAI.

Aimed at developing indigenous technology solutions for Internal Security forces in broad areas Electronic System Design and Manufacturing, the NCETIS is a joint initiative by IIT Bombay and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), under its flagship Digital India Programme.

Last year in December, The joint efforts of several entities including NCETIS and Pune based SrivisifAl Technologies for developing an AI-based Video Analytics Solution had won the 25th National E-Governance Gold Award in Outstanding Research on Citizen-Centric services by Academic/Research Institutions. The project was led by IIT Bombay professor Ganesh Ramakrishnan. 

IIT Bombay Alumnus To Lead Stanford University's New Climate Change School That Received $1.1 Bn from Silicon Valley VC

Image - sustainability.stanford.edu

Globally renowned university, Stanford University, has announced that it is launching a new school, later this year, called Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. This will be the university’s first new school in 70 years, will accelerate solutions to global climate crisis and sustainability challenges.

The school has received an investments of US$1.1 billion from John and Ann Doerr, along with gifts from other philanthropists. John Doerr is a renowned Silicon Valley venture capitalist. He is a VC at Kleiner Perkins in Menlo Park, California. Doerr famously led Kleiner into Google in 1999, investing $12.5 million. He was also an early investor in Amazon, DoorDash, Slack and many more.

Doerr and his wife donated $1.1 billion to fund the school -- the largest gift ever given to a university for establishing a new school, says a report by NY Times.

The university also announced that Dr. Arun Majumdar has been appointed as the school’s inaugural dean. Majumdar is Dr. Majumdar graduated as a Mechanical Engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay in 1985. 

Dr. Arun Majumdar

Dr. Arun Majumdar is an internationally recognized expert in advanced energy systems, new materials, electrical grids, and renewable energy. He will be the inaugural dean of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, that is expected to launch on 1st September, 2022.

Dr. Majumdar, is a also former co-director of the Precourt Institute for Energy, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he co-chairs the George Shultz Energy and Climate Task Force.

Going back to the new school, the new school is designed to focus on various topics related to the climate crisis and its solutions, including earth and planetary sciences, energy technology, food and water security and human health.

The school will also have impact on current challenges and those that arise in the future through its students. New degree programs for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students emphasize experiential learning.

Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability has been designed to power excellence in 8 areas of scholarship that, together, are crucial for advancing the long-term prosperity of the planet - 

1. Climate change
2. Earth and planetary sciences
3. Energy technology
4. Sustainable cities
5. Natural environment
6. Food and water security 
7. Human society and behavior
8. Human Health and the Environment.

Sustainability Accelerator

To expand the reach of the new school to the people globally, the school will also have Sustainability Accelerator, which will include convening space, equipment, expert staff, and will provide specialized training and project funding to generate solutions that span the spectrum of technology and policy.

The accelerator will support teams of faculty and students who engage with external partners to develop and scale solutions across the spectrum of policy and technology. The accelerator will also offer grants that emphasize measurable impacts through partnership with government, industry, and other outside entities.

Green Steel - Vedanta Exploring Tying-up with IIT-Bombay To Research on Using Hydrogen in Steel Manufacturing

Amid climate change crisis, when companies engaged in manufacturing using coal or other fossil-fuels is looking to reduce their carbon footprints, Sesa Goa Iron Ore, a Vedanta Group company engaged in exploration, mining and processing of iron ore, is looking for a tie-up with IIT-Bombay to carry out a research for manufacturing pig iron ore using hydrogen in place of coke (a type of coal).

Steel is combination of iron and carbon, and while the iron is obtained from iron-ore the carbon in steel is obtained from coke. Pig iron is an intermediary product before the Steel is produced. Pig Iron has high amount of carbon content then required for the end-product - 'Steel'.

Vedanta subsidiary, Sesa Goa Iron Ore, is looking to realize "Green Steel". For the same, the company is exploring to collaborate with IIT-Bombay for a study on the use of hydrogen in its steel production. Its in a nascent stage however.

Notably, Steelmaking is one of the most carbon emission intensive industries in the world. According to a last year's report, steelmaking is estimated to be responsible for 7-9% of all direct fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions across the world.

If a steel manufacturing company is using a non-electric process for steelmaking and instead using coke/coal then there's too much of carbon emission in the process. First - using coke in melting raw iron (iron ore ) is itself increases carbon footprints and Second - releasing CO and CO2, when decarbonizing the pig iron, to convert it into proper steel. 

To make steel, the iron needs to be separated from the oxygen and a tiny amount of carbon needs to be added, which is accomplished by melting the iron ore at a very high temperature (1,700 degrees Celsius) in the presence of air and coke. Here the pig iron is obtained.

This Pig Iron is then converted to Steel by blowing oxygen through molten pig iron. In this process, some of the carbon in the iron converted into CO− and CO2, to turn it into steel.

Last year, consulting firm McKinsey identified a number of technologies for decarbonization including hydrogen usage, carbon capture and reuse, and maximizing use of electric arc furnaces powered by clean energy.

Sujal Shah, Deputy CEO, who is Vedanta's Sesa Goa Iron Ore Business, told news agency PTI, "We have our own vision of going towards the green steel. So my coke ovens will become green coke very soon, where I will be having all the coke-making through a green process, extracting, harnessing... 
and it will simply float over the grid. I would not require power from the grid, rather I would give power to the grid."

Vedanta has earlier committed to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2050 or sooner and pledging US$5 billion over the next 10 years to accelerate the transition to net zero operations.

IIT Bombay Alumnus Founded Free Sleep Management App 'Neend' Raises $700K in Seed Round Led by Better Capital

The company offers vernacular language bedtime stories and guided meditation to make sleep more effective

Neend, India’s leading mobile-based application for sleep management has announced that it has raised $700k in its latest pre-seed round. The funding round was led by Better Capital, and saw participation from Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bahl (Founder of Snapdeal), Kunal Shah (Cred), and Nandan (Swiggy), Niraj Singh (Spinny) Sandeep Singhal (Nexus), Lalit Keshre and Harsh Jain(Groww) among others. 

The funds will be utlized for linguistic expansion and create more depth in categories like Yog Nidra, guided meditation session, and music, amongst others. In addition to this, Neend will also collaborate with the professional sleep experts to help users to measure, understand, and fix their sleep.

Founded in 2021 by Surbhi Jain, an IIT Bombay alumnus and serial entrepreneur, Neend aims to help individuals cope up with all sleep related problems, and provides an immersive experience with its relaxing bedtime stories, soothing sleep sounds, and ambiences. Owing to the current fast paced life, a majority of Indians are dealing with stress and anxiety which often lead to sleep deprivation, which the brand is aiming to address.

Commenting on the investment, Surbhi Jain, Founder of Neend, said, “In the last 5 years due to change in our lifestyles - lack of physical exercise, increased screen time consumption, and stress, sleeplessness or insomnia has become a very common problem. One in every 3 people has sleep troubles in the world. This has poised a huge challenge for individuals, impacting productivity levels. We wanted to build a platform that helps people address this. Through our relaxing content based approach, we are helping individuals cure insomnia and provide better quality sleep.”

In the past few months, Neend has seen tremendous growth across platforms. Their YouTube channel has more than 6.5 million views, with a subscriber base of 75000 in just a couple of months. The Neend app currently has over 50K downloads (most of these coming organically), with individuals suffering with severe insomnia issues recovering significantly and getting rid of their medication.

"Insomnia is fast becoming a major problem in India and is likely to get worse. Neend is an outcome of a founder’s personal journey with sleep deprivation. Neend combines immersive content and sleep expertise in a simple single app that is designed for millions of Indian users who are suffering with little help. I am excited to partner with Surbhi & team as they build the Sleep App for India”, said Vaibhav Domkundwar of Better Capital, an early backer of innovative health tech companies like Cradlewise, Fittr, Mojocare & others.

Neend is on a mission to help people have a better lifestyle by putting the right amount of focus on things which matter. The company is also working with experts to build sleep therapy content that helps cure stress, and chronic insomnia.

IIT Bombay Prof Develops Autonomous Tech for the Repair and Restoration of High-Value Aerospace Components

New technology can autonomously repair & restore high-value components such as moulds, turbine blades & aerospace components

A professor from IIT Bombay has developed a completely autonomous technology for the repair and restoration of high-value components such as moulds, turbine blades, and other aerospace components that require minimal human intervention. It is expected that this technology will leap-frog the restoration and repair industry to the next level and help in nucleation of a viable cutting-edge laser manufacturing ecosystem for Atmanirbhar Bharat.

The existing repair techniques like welding and thermal spraying are ad hoc and do not provide accuracy and precision. Moreover, all the existing technologies are manual, and the quality of repair depends upon the skill set of the person.

Prof. Ramesh Kumar Singh, Professor, Mechanical Engineering Department, IIT Bombay, has developed a novel technology that uses a laser for excellent process control and is completely autonomous with minimal to zero human intervention. This ensures restoration with enhanced quality and repeatability.

The complete developed system with its all subsystems. There are two options for the manipulation of the deposition head: one with 6 Axis robotic manipulators and the second with gantry-based 5 Axis systems. A 3D printed hollow cylinder, plate, and punch of H13 tool steel hard-faced with CPM 9V steel are also shown

The technology developed with support from the Advanced Manufacturing Technologies Program of the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India, has undergone validation and testing.

With the help of the technology, the defective component which requires repair will be scanned autonomously for damage detection via a laser scanner, and the deposition path will be determined based on certain algorithms. The laser-directed energy deposition (LDED) technique will be used to deposit the material, followed by finishing and automated inspection of the restored product.

The developed system consists of a robotic restoration system and is designed to function autonomously for all key activities, namely, scanning path planning, damage detection, deposition, finishing, and inspection. In addition, the process parameters will be obtained from physics-based models to induce favourable residual stress, which is one of the key limitations in restoration via additive manufacturing. This paves the way for the development of ‘science enabled technology’ solutions, which according to Prof. Ramesh Kumar Singh, are not available for restoration of high-value components.

The final integration of the two systems-- the laser-directed energy deposition and the defect scanning systems, is underway, and the project is at 7th stage of the Technology Readiness Level. Prof. Ramesh has allied with Bharat Forge, Aditya Birla Science and Technology Company and Interface Design Associates for its industrial uptake.

 The Scanning System for the damage assessment of components. The 3-D point cloud can be acquired by data-fusion of 2-D profiles obtained continuously from laser scanners and the position of robot end-effecter. The actual and scanned 3D free form components are also shown.

"The developed technology is very impactful, and a game-changer for the restoration and repair segment of the manufacturing industry and has huge market potential. The components which can be reconditioned via this technology are very high-value. The level of accuracy and precision, which is possible through this technology, is phenomenal and is far ahead of the current state-of-the-art methods," mentioned Prof. Ramesh.

According to Prof. Ramesh, it is expected that the pay-off from the technology would include the entire machine cost with around repair of twenty-odd components.

Source - www.pib.gov.in

Finance Club IIT Bombay Brings Cryptonite, a Pan India Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Summit Aimed at Educating Students

Finance Club - IIT Bombay, in collaboration with Woodstock Fund, an emerging technology investment fund, Builders Tribe, an incubator dedicated to driving the blockchain-based startup innovation, DAOMaker, an incubator DAO with a community governed fund, and Polytrade, a blockchain-based decentralized protocol announced the launch of Cryptonite today. This 4-day pan-India cryptocurrency and blockchain summit is scheduled to be held from 7th - 10th January, 2022.

The summit aims to serve as a platform that would provide students from all across the country knowledge about the new and rapidly evolving world of Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, NFTs and Web 3.0. It entails a myriad of opportunities to imbibe knowledge and would bridge the existing knowledge gap between the techno sector and the student community of India.

It would consist of numerous panel discussions seated by renowned speakers and top players in the Web 3.0 and Crypto sphere. The speakers would cover various principal questions revolving around the diverse applications of Web 3.0 along with the regulatory aspect and the future of cryptocurrencies. To gain practical exposure, participants would also get to learn about the practical advancements made by some of the startups in this sphere and also a chance to learn under the companies’ umbrella in the form of various mentorship opportunities.

With over 3,000+ registrations, 3 panel discussions, 3 hackathons, 2 trading competitions and INR 20 Lakhs worth of cash prizes, Cryptonite would serve as the perfect amalgamation of theoretical and practical learning experience for the youth of the country and a huge step in the web 3.0 revolution for the student community of India.

“India has the largest English-speaking developer community, and with its expansive talent, entrepreneurial acumen, and conducive regulatory framework, India is a bludgeoning playground for technological innovation. We are excited to partner with Finance Club, IIT Bombay to host the first edition of their Crypto Summit - Cryptonite this year and provide the right platform for industry players to collaborate and encourage the Web3.0 drive globally.” ~ Himanshu Yadav, Founding Partner, Woodstock Fund.

To know more about Cryptonite, visit: https://financeclubiitb.in
/

Extracting Hydrogen from Water As Alternate Fuel: IIT Bombay Researchers Devise Economical Method

Hydrogen gas is an environment-friendly fuel, as it produces water upon combustion in the presence of oxygen. Earlier this month, researchers at the Engines and Unconventional Fuels Laboratory at IIT Delhi has developed a technology and even filed patent for Hydrogen-based electricity generation that is environment-friendly as it produce zero-emission. However, the tech developed utilizes hydrogen in internal combustion engines like gensets.

As a clean fuel, hydrogen can provide nearly three times higher energy than gasoline. However, the quantity of hydrogen available from the Earth’s atmosphere is tiny. The more widely available compound, water, might be a source of producing hydrogen. However, the chemical reaction requiring the production of hydrogen from water requires an external source of energy. 

In a recent study , the researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) have used a new catalyst for extracting hydrogen from water. Researchers have demonstrated how a magnetized catalyst can speed up hydrogen production while bringing down the energy cost. They showed that their chosen catalyst had increased the speed of producing hydrogen and reduced the energy required to do so, compared to previous studies.

To extract hydrogen from water, researchers insert two electrodes across the water and pass current, which can separate the hydrogen from water, a process called electrolysis of water. Earlier studies have shown that metals like Platinum, Rhodium, and Iridium speed up electrolysis. “Although these metals work well, industrial systems don’t prefer them because they are expensive,” says Prof Chandramouli Subramaniam of IIT Bombay and an author of the study. 

The aim of making hydrogen an alternative source of fuel requires minimizing the energy input in producing it while maximizing the amount of energy extracted from combusting hydrogen.

Going more technical, the study has used a compound consisting of cobalt and oxygen to achieve the same goal at a much lower cost. While earlier researchers focused on developing new catalysts for the electrolysis of water, the authors of the present study concentrated on an alternative approach.

To achieve the increased energy efficiency, the researchers turned to less costly metal cobalt, already known for speeding up electrolysis. They decorated carbon nanoflorets, nanocarbon structures arranged like a marigold flower with cobalt oxide particles and placed these nanoflorets in the water. An electric field applied through the cobalt oxide to water molecules results in the electrolysis of water. Although cobalt oxide is a well-known electrochemical catalyst, it requires a high amount of energy and produces hydrogen at a low speed.

To increase the speed of electrolysis, the researchers did not rely on the electric field alone. Magnetic fields, which are related to electric fields, can play a crucial role in these reactions. The researchers showed that if they introduced a small fridge magnet near their setup, the reaction speed increased about three times. Even after removing the external magnet, the reaction still took place about three times faster than in the absence of the magnetic field. “This is because the catalyst we have designed can sustain the magnetisation for prolonged periods, the key being the development of a synergistic carbon-metal oxide interface,” explains Jayeeta Saha, the author of the study. “A one-time exposure of the magnetic field is enough to achieve the high speed of hydrogen production for over 45 minutes,” she adds.

It is easy to integrate accessible house-magnets into the existing designs at a low cost. “We can directly adopt the modified setup in existing electrolysers without any change in design or mode of operation of the electrolysers,” says Ranadeb Ball, another author of the study.

“The intermittent use of an external magnetic field provides a new direction for achieving energy-efficient hydrogen generation. Other catalysts can also be explored for this purpose,” says Prof. Subramaniam.

Once the hydrogen is produced in large amounts, it can be packed off in cylinders and used as a fuel. If their efforts are successful, we might be looking at an environmentally friendly fuel, hydrogen, replacing petroleum, diesel, and compressed natural gas (CNG) in the future.

The study was supported by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science and Technology (DST), the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and the Industrial Research and Consultancy Center, IIT Bombay. It was published in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.

To recall, last year in October a report was launched, by secretary of DST, on "Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Research" going across India. The complied report was of that-time ongoing research activities in the country related to hydrogen being carried out by several scientists, industry, utilities, and other stakeholders from R&D laboratories and academia

NewsSource [with editing] - Vigyan Prasar

IIT Bombay and Tata Memorial Centre Together Accomplish India's 1st CAR-T Cell Therapy at ACTREC, Tata Hospital in Mumbai

Department of Biotechnology supported First CAR-T cell therapy conducted at ACTREC, Tata Hospital in Mumbai

DBT/BIRAC-NBM Supported Phase I/II Clinical Trials

The Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy has emerged as a breakthrough in cancer treatment. Clinical trials conducted globally have shown promising results in end stage patients, especially in patients suffering from Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia. Though this technology has a remarkable therapeutic potential for cancer patients, at present this technology is not available in India. Each patient's CAR-T cell therapy costs 3-4 crore (INR). The challenge therefore is to develop this technology in cost-effective manner and make it available for the patients.

The manufacturing complexity is a major reason for the therapy cost. In order to promote and support development of CAR-T cell technology against cancer and other diseases, BIRAC and DBT have taken initiatives and launched specialized calls to invite proposals in the last 2 years.

The 4th June, 2021 was a historic day for TMH, IIT Bombay team and cancer care in India as the first CAR-T cell therapy (a type of gene therapy) was done at the Bone Marrow Transplant unit at ACTREC, Tata Memorial Center in Mumbai. The CAR-T cells were designed and manufactured at Bioscience and Bioengineering (BSBE) department of IIT Bombay.

Historic day in cancer care as the first #CAR_T cell therapy in India is done at @ACTREC_TMC thanks to great collaboration between @iitbombay & @TataMemorial
Dedicated efforts from @purwarrahul2 & @DrGauravNarula Will be available at a fraction of the cost pic.twitter.com/wOKD3jW4Dd

— Pramesh CS (@cspramesh) June 5, 2021

This work is partly supported by BIRAC-PACE scheme. The TMC-IIT Bombay team are further supported to extend this project for conducting Phase I/II trial of their CAR-T product by DBT/BIRAC, through National Biopharma Mission.

This is a “first in India” gene therapy in early phase pilot clinical trial and the dedicated efforts and excellent collaboration between IIT Bombay and Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai.The central government’s National Biopharma Mission-BIRAC has approved 19.15 Cr crore to the team for conducting a first-in-human phase-1/2 clinical trial of the CAR-T cells. The clinical trials are being done by Dr (Surg Cdr) Gaurav Narula, Professor of Paediatric Oncology and Health Sciences, and his team from TMC, Mumbai, and the novel CAR-T cells that will act as drugs that were manufactured by Prof Rahul Purwar, Bioscience and Bioengineering (BSBE) department and his team at IIT Bombay. The design, development, and extensive pre-clinical testing was carried out by IIT-B as a collaborative project with Tata Memorial Center, Mumbai by the two Investigators.

IIT-B director Subhasis Chaudhuri said this was a significant feat for the institute as well as the country. “We at IIT-B are delighted that our scientists along with Tata Memorial Hospital have come out with the most sophisticated therapy in cancer treatment. If the trials are successful, it may save millions of lives by making the treatment available in India at an affordable cost. It is a research of IIT-B that is expected to touch the lives of all,” said Chaudhuri.

National Biopharma Mission is also supporting the development of Lentiviral vector manufacturing facility for packaging plasmids used to transfer the modified T cell inside the body, cGMP facility for T-cell transduction and expansion for CAR T-cell manufacturing to two other organizations. The development of CAR-T cell technology for diseases including acute lymphocytic leukemia, multiple myeloma, glioblastoma, hepatocellular carcinoma and type-2 diabetes is supported through DBT.

DST Supported Startup Indra Water Develops System for Re-using N95 Masks, PPE Medical Gear To Reduce Excessive COVID-19 Bio-Medical Waste Generation

The system has been validated and tested by the Department of Biosciences & Bioengineering at IIT Bombay

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital in Mumbai installs Vajra Kavach for disinfection of used N95 Masks, PPE, Lab coats & medical equipment

A N95 Mask/PPE disinfection system developed by Mumbai-based start-up, Indra Water, has been installed at multiple Government hospitals across Maharashtra & Telangana.

The disinfection system called Vajra Kavach is significantly decreasing the cost of combating the pandemic by making PPE, medical, and nonmedical gear reusable and reducing the generation of excessive COVID 19 related bio-medical waste, thereby helping the environment. It is also making personal protective equipment more available, affordable, and accessible.

The product uses a multistage disinfection process with advanced oxidation, corona discharge, and UV-C light spectrum to inactivate the viruses, bacteria, and other microbial strains present on the PPE with more than 99.999% efficiency.

Vajra Kavach has been successfully installed at @BioRiiDL, Mumbai. Workplaces need to take cost-effective precautionary measures to prevent the transmission of Covid-19.@IndiaDST @SINEIITB#sustainability #covid19 #vajrakavach
For more details visit: https://t.co/4BgsnH2l0z pic.twitter.com/mEJoH0GfBi

— Indra Water (@IndraWaterIndia) April 8, 2021

Indra Water, the startup which was initiated with the NIDHI-PRAYAS grant from DST (through SINE- IIT Bombay) for innovations in the water sector, used the Center for Augmenting WAR with COVID-19 Health Crisis (CAWACH) grant of the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India to modify their technology to make it suitable for combating the COVID 19 infection. With support from SINE, IIT Bombay prepared themselves to manufacture and supply 25 disinfection systems per month.

The system has been validated and tested by the Department of Biosciences & Bioengineering at IIT Bombay and has been found to achieve more than 5 LOG (99.999%) inactivation of viruses and bacteria. It is also CSIR - NEERI approved & IP55 certified and is now being installed in hospitals treating COVID 19 patients across India.

(Mr. Abhijit Vvr (abhijit@indrawater.com,+91 99666 95436) can be contacted for more details.)

IIT Bombay Alumni Founded AI-based Health Tech Platform NeoDocs Raised Funding led by 9Unicorns

9Unicorns leads an undisclosed pre-seed investment in NeoDocs, an AI based health tech platform founded by IIT Bombay alumni

The platform aims to simplify medical report interpretation and promote preventive care among the general public by providing actionable insights on their health parameters

Mumbai, 1st December, 2020: 9Unicorns, India's first idea-phase accelerator VC fund, has recently led an undisclosed pre-seed investment in NeoDocs, an AI based health-tech platform. The funding round also saw participation from investors such as Dr. Rohit Srivastava, [Head of Department, Dept. of Biosciences & Biomedical Engg., IIT Bombay] and Hemanshu Jain, [CEO Khyaal, Ex Co-Founder Diabeto.

Founded in 2020 by IIT Bombay alumni - NikunjMalpani, AnuragMeena and Pratik Lodha, NeoDocs aims to disrupt the healthcare industry by enabling self-diagnosis through its AI-led technology. The platform interprets and simplifies medical reports to provide personalized health recommendations. Users can get simplified interpretation and analysis in a few seconds by forwarding their medical reports on NeoDocs' WhatsApp number without the need of any application installation. The platform's proprietary AI engine processes the report, looks for inter-biomarker relations and generates a smart report in English and Hindi via NeoDocs' lab-agnostic system. The startup will soon launch the same in other vernacular languages of India.

Speaking on the investment, NikunjMalpani, CEO – NeoDocs, said, "Seeing my parents develop co-morbidities, in spite of doing annual health check-ups and leading a seemingly 'healthy' lifestyle, has been my main motivator. There are more than 550 million Indians who are either pre-chronic or chronic. By building a vernacular product, we help people understand future health risks and avoid them with evidence-backed personalised recommendations, backed by a team of top medical experts."

"We will use the funding to build a strong cross-functional team, further strengthen the product and do validation studies," he added.

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & Managing Director – 9Unicorns, commented, "The pandemic has propelled the adoption of AI in healthcare across multiple applications. The major factor being the increased volume of data that is demanding pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to look for improvised healthcare services. NeoDocs is at the centre of this disruption and is well-suited to catapult to success in this thriving industry. Their innovative idea of utilizing AI for Medical data interpretationwill not only benefit millions but also create the needed awareness for preventable diseases."

Anurag Meena, COO – NeoDocs, commented, "Healthcare in India has traditionally been reactive, wherein we wrongly equate being symptom-free to being healthy. As a result, one in every three deaths is said to be preventable. It's essential to act early and act right in order to improve health outcomes. The trigger to act is highest right after seeing one's blood report, and this is where Neodocs enters."

Pratik Lodha, CTO – NeoDocs, said, "Preventive healthcare in Indian is at an exciting juncture, with a huge growth in wellness diagnostics – currently comprising 10% of the diagnostics market and growing at double the rate. COVID-19 has led to a big spurt in self-care. In addition to medicines, people also want to lead healthier lifestyles and are adopting alternatives."

Hemanshu Jain, (CEO - Khyaal) Ex Co-founder Diabeto – "NeoDocs got my attention when they demonstrated their product to me. However, what convinced me were the founders and their passion to make something useful for people. With healthcare becoming the prime focus these days, it is important that you are able to help people understand their health vitals in a very simple and easy way. NeoDoc's lab report analysis tool will not only help people understand their reports but also help them make the necessary lifestyle changes required."

NeoDocs' services also include providing tips on exercise, diet, lifestyle and supplements, helping users maintain their health records and predicting future diseases – all this to make healthy living easier and more convenient for the public.

9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC. It provides acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage startups. 9Unicorns provides funding upto $100K per startup in the first round, and may invest further $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From idea stage to angel stage, it supports startups across various themes & sectors.

9Unicorns' strength & focus is on a hands-on support ecosystem for startups, beyond capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, opens doors to the startups for access to a wide network of successful founders, category-leaders, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives an acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.

For more information, please reach out to info@9unicorns.in or find more information at www.9unicorns.in 

IIT Bombay Launches Self-Help Website to Enhance Emotional Wellbeing of Its Students

Union Minister of State for Education, Shri. Sanjay Dhotre launched a self-help website – Bandhu – for students of IIT Bombay today at 11 am in the presence of Director of IIT Bombay Prof. Subhasis Chaudhuri.

Appreciating the efforts of alumni of IIT Bombay, the Minister said, “A good education institution is one in which every student feels welcomed and cared for, where a safe and stimulating learning environment exists, where a wide range of learning experiences are offered, and where good physical infrastructure and appropriate resources conducive to learning are available to all students. Students are the prime stakeholders in the education system. Vibrant campus life is essential for high-quality teaching-learning processes. Towards this end, students should be given plenty of opportunities for participation in sports, culture/arts clubs, eco-clubs, activity clubs, community service projects etc."

While talking about the significance of counselling systems in educational institutions, he mentioned that "National Education Policy 2020 says that in every education institution, there shall be counselling systems for handling stress and emotional adjustments. Furthermore, a systematized arrangement shall be created to provide the requisite support to students from rural backgrounds, including increasing hostel facilities as needed. All higher education institutions will ensure quality medical facilities for all students in their institutions." 

"I am sure that the academic leaders at IIT Bombay are looking into these aspects also, along with imparting top class education. I am sure the “BANDHU” initiative will help our students to travel on their respective chosen paths in a stress free manner, ensuring the emotional well being," he added.

Bandhu has been designed in conjunction with the counsellors at IIT Bombay along with external experts with support from Prof. T. Kundu, Dean (Student Affairs) and Prof. Suhas Joshi, Dean (Alumni and Corporate Relations). It addresses challenges ranging from adjustment to college life, academic stress, and mental health. Bandhu has curated reads, motivational alumni journeys, expert podcasts and tools for self-exploration. Project Bandhu was initiated by alumni of the Class of 1992, as a part of their silver jubilee reunion in 2017. They pledged to support IIT Bombay and help students enhance their emotional well-being. The self-help website is one of the first steps in this direction. They have been closely involved with execution of the project.“We live in a time where we are prone to stress. The students of IIT Bombay need to stay strong, both physically and emotionally to construct and pursue their dreams,” said Director of IIT Bombay Prof. Subhasis Chaudhuri. “The pandemic has also increased stress in the lives of the students. We are happy to announce the timely launch of Bandhu at IIT Bombay,” he added.

“Many issues, when tackled effectively at the initial stages, can help students overcome challenges in a timely manner before a domino effect starts coming into play. Moreover, it will also point out when it could be time to seek help from the support structure available at IIT Bombay,” said Rekha

Koita, alumni of IIT Bombay from the Class of 1992.

Eminent film maker, Mr. Nitesh Tiwari who is also an IIT Bombay alumni was the Guest of Honour for this occasion.

Venture Catalysts Invests in IIT-B and Super30 alumni founded 7Classes

The company will use the funding to reach the hinterlands of India 

Venture Catalysts, India’s first, largest and pioneering integrated incubator and accelerator platform, has invested an undisclosed amount in 7 Classes – World’s first confidence diagnosis-based e-learning platform presenting a unique and out-of-box approach towards education for the 1.3 billion young minds of the world, focusing initially on students of standards 9th to 12th in India, Dubai and the US.

Founded by a team of IIT-B, NIT & Super30 alumni -Anup Raaj (IITB alumnus, ex-CTO PSTakeCare acquired by K. Ganesh’s Portea and a student of Super30 Fame Anand Kumar),Arun Kumar Gupta, Ranjan Kumar Soni (NIT JSR Alumnus) and Arvind Patel(IITB Alumnus) - 7Classes has built an innovative educational framework by continuous innovation such as only 7 students in one batch, reverse interaction by the teacher, 2 teacher model of teaching, confidence diagnosis driven learning etc. This system is designed to solve the menace of crowded classes and low confidence issues of students. 

Speaking on the fund raise, Anup Raaj, said, “Our current fundraise will allow us to reach out to the grassroots of the country. This year our goal is to ensure we are a known educational brand in Indian and Dubai market. Fund will be spent on building the confidence diagnosis, teacher empowerment tech in 12-15 languages to make it reachable and accessible to almost every parent.”

Speaking on the investment, Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, President and Co-founder, Venture Catalysts, said,“We were really impressed with the concept of 7Classes, which aims to address the fundamental problems that disrupt the education of children. The founding team is well qualified and experienced to guide students as and when they face any difficulties. We are confident that their unique teaching model will receive a positive response from both students and parents across India, Dubai and the US."

7Classes is a fully digitised EdTech platform for aspiring IIT JEE, engineering, medical and Olympiads students to learn and prepare for Competitive exams. The classes are a two-way interactive format and teachers follow an in-house created proprietary model (2:4:1) of study plans, teaching modules, heutagogy, testing tools, confidence tracking mechanisms, one-to-one attention for each and every student and inclusive individual growth tracking systems.

About VCats

Venture Catalysts is India’s first integrated incubator. It invests $250K – $1.5 Million in early stage startups that have potential to create enduring value for over a long period of time. Venture Catalysts brings a lethal combination of Capital, Mentoring and Business Network to help investee companies to succeed. Their innovation provides value to startups through its extensive angel network, funding, community, services and co-working facility.