“Indigenisationof technology is crucial for the country. India requires your pay back and this is the time that you pay back the country in terms of indigenisation, science and technology, N Kalaiselvi, Secretary, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and Director General of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, appealed to young students graduating from the Indian Institute of Information Technology Design and Manufacturing, Kancheepuram.

“This is the right time to rise to the occasion. If we put in our minds, efforts and try to understand each other’s skill sets and synergise all our efforts, we may be able to come up with a new formula in terms of manufacturing or supply chain,” she added.

Sustainable energy

For instance, no Indian cannot live without a mobile phone, which cannot function without a battery. That’s why knowingly the government four days back — the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister and Minister for Science and Technology — all the three unanimously said that storage is becoming an indispensable part of the country. You may create energy; you may use energy in different forms, you may manage energy but how can you keep it as a sustainable energy without finding solutions for its storage.

Storage is very essential, but is there an indigenous technology? The institute’s Chairman and Zoho’s CEO Sridhar Vembu said, “Whenever we are using mobile technology or a communication system, the kind of IP related royalty that is going to different people, it is a huge amount. When are we going to come up with our own indigenous technology? Days are not so far off and let us start thinking in this direction,” she said addressing the institute’s 11th Convocation on Thursday.

Milestones

“We are now passing through the very first year of the ‘Amrit Kaal’ period, which we will be celebrating till 2047. By 2030, our target will be $5-trillion economy. When this kind of a $5 trillion economy is announced by the National leadership as a milestone target, is it not our responsibility to live up to that expectation?,” she said.

A total of 411 students graduated during the convocation. This includes 30 PhD, 149 Dual Degrees of B Tech and M Tech, 33 M Tech, 12 M Des and 187 B Tech degree recipients. The number of PhD scholars receiving their degrees this year was the highest since the inception of the institute.

In the current year, 176 offers were received by IIITDM Kancheepuram students from 76 companies with the median salary offered being ₹11 lakh and an average salary being ₹8 lakh.

Vembu said the Institute is proactive in submitting patents and working on industry collaborations. “To solve the issues that we all face in everyday life, we need to observe our environment to understand the gap, we should have a good team to brainstorm and collaborate, and we require a well-supported infrastructure to facilitate iterations of the solutions.”

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