IIM Jammu, IIT Delhi, and Govt. Polytechnic, Vikram Chowk organised an EV Start-up workshop to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Faculty members and students from MIET and IIT Jammu attended the event.
Under the direction of Prof. B. S. Sahay, IIM Jammu’s director, the event was put together with assistance from FITT, IIT Delhi, and was sponsored by the SONA COMSTAR grant challenge for Electric Vehicles.
The Govt. Polytechnic, Vikram Chowk, Jammu, which houses the TATA-CIIIT CoE for vehicles, provided support for the event’s planning.
Arun Bangotra (Principal) welcomed the participants from various institutions in his welcome message and praised IIM Jammu’s initiative in organising such a participatory event.
He also encouraged the participants to use the resources for shared research goals.
Owner of the start-up “Tadpole,” Jawaad Khan of Bhaderwah, served as the event’s keynote speaker.
His company has received the order of retrofitting 50 gypsies of the Indian Army with EV motors. He shared his story of how a student of average academic scores and an economically weaker section from Bhaderwah, he self-learned about electric vehicles and reached a stage where he is retrofitting EVs for the Indian Army & HNIs besides assisting IIT Delhi & other IITs set up hi-tech EV research labs.
Due to the sustainability overtones of his work, he has been invited as a speaker at the stakeholder conversation meet of the United Nations Environment Program. During the presentation and Q & A Session with the Chief Innovation Officer of IIM Jammu, Vivek Sharma, he discussed a lot of research areas where the academic community can undertake research and build start-ups.
The program was curated by the business incubation centre of IIM Jammu viz. Foundation for Entrepreneurship Innovation & Skill Development to make the faculty and students of the region aware of the current challenge statement in the EV industry and invite them to form research groups to solve specific problems related to EVs.
Anubhav Sen from FITT, IIT Delhi introduced the grant of Rs 80 lakhs inviting solutions in the domains of V2X Communication, Indigenous EV components, EV utilities, Recycling/upcycling of EV cells, Maintenance & Diagnostics, Thermal Management and EV cell Chemistry.
