IUST hosts IIT Bombay’s e-yantra Innovation Challenge

Awantipora, Oct 22: The Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST) hosted the Ideation Workshop for the e-Yantra Innovation Challenge (eYIC) 2024-25 today.

As the Nodal Regional Centre for Jammu and Kashmir, IUST welcomed 27 teams from prominent institutions such as Jammu University, Kashmir University, Central University of Jammu, and other regional colleges.

The workshop, led by Prof Kavi Arya and his team from IIT Bombay, provided participants with hands-on guidance to develop innovative solutions aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The teams explored challenges across sectors such as health, education, clean energy, and climate action, gaining valuable experience in innovation and entrepreneurship. He emphasised the importance of harnessing technology to solve real-world problems and motivated students to utilize robotics, IoT, and embedded systems as tools to create meaningful solutions.

Prof AH Moon, Dean Academic Affairs, in his address, emphasized the critical role of innovation in today’s world and talked about the stages of design thinking with emphasis on Ideation. He said that at IUST new academic programmes have been curated in a manner that students experience training in innovation and entrepreneurship early on and are encouraged to register their projects on YUKTI platform thereby helping them in exploring the commercial viability and scalability of their concepts.

The Guest Speaker, Rohan Goswami, a globally renowned entrepreneur, conducted interactive hands-on sessions. Drawing from his entrepreneurial expertise, he guided students through the process of problem formulation, helping them identify real-world challenges and design innovative solutions. He emphasized the importance of local innovations that could contribute to broader, impactful outcomes.

Earlier, welcoming the guests and participants, Dr Sajad Ahmad Lone, Head Department of Computer Science and Engineering said that the lab has already welcomed over 3000 students to awareness sessions in robotics, IoT, and embedded systems, furthering its mission to foster technological innovation across the region. Expressing gratitude to Syed Mujtiba Hussain, Coordinator e-Yantra thanked all the participating and collaborating organizations and said that the e-Yantra Lab at IUST has evolved as a regional hub for innovation and entrepreneurship across Jammu and Kashmir.