IIT Delhi is all set to host the 12th edition of its massively popular innovations 'Open House'. Here’s what to expect

It’s that time of the year again when India’s premier engineering institute, IIT Delhi hosts ‘Open House’ - its annual exhibition to give people an insight into the revolutionary work happening inside the campus over the past year. As the college is gearing up to host the 12th edition of ‘Open House’, the list of splendid innovations that will be featured at the event has already caught eyeballs across the country.

This is because once again, most of these projects are not only innovative but those with “high societal impact”.

Among a total of 500 research projects and 80 demo projects to be displayed are some really interesting innovations like a hip protective device for the elderly, high productivity bio-fertilizer, Mamma Pod and diagram books for blind students.

There will also be these: A 5 min endotoxin detection kit, Tissue Engineering and 3D Bio printing, Design and Development of Mobile Unit for Biogas Enrichment & Bottlingm among others.

But what’s going to be the center of attention is a system of better drainage systems for Delhi. Yes, A lot of eyes, especially from the Delhi government will be on this as the event kickstarts on April 23.

V Ramgopal Rao, who assumed office as the premier institute’s Director three days ago, said “The idea of IIT Open House is to identify projects where a new product or technology is created with high societal impact. We are going to connect with agricultural and healthcare institutions and would like to work on multi-disciplinary projects offering societal benefits.”

IIT Delhi is expecting over 40,000 school students to visit the exposition which will be open and free for public. While demonstrations will close by 2 pm the laboratory will stay open for visitors till 4 pm.

IIT IS STRIVING TO CREATE A BETTER WORLD FOR THE VISUALLY CHALLENGED

The institute has been working towards providing aid to the visually-impaired for quite sometime now and had come up in the past with technology-driven devices like the blind cane, that have shown positive results.

Their latest project focuses on providing blind students access to non-visual representations of diagrams and figures in subjects like maths, science, economics and geography, in tactile form at an affordable cost.

Prof M Balakrishnan, who is guiding the project, said it uses the process of thermoforming with durable PVC sheets as opposed to the more expensive swell paper or the less durable embossing, while using 3D printing technology.

“Thermoforming lies between embossing and swell technology. While embossing might be economical, it is less durable and prone to wear and tear. Swell technology is expensive with each paper costing Rs 100. With thermoforming, more durable diagrams are created at a nominal price of Rs 10-Rs 15 per sheet,” Renu Kaushik and Vibha Chaudhury, who are working as research scholars for the project, said.

The team has been working with NCERT to bring out a map book for Upper Primary grades in blind schools.

They have also brought out science and maths textbooks for ninth grade and economics textbook for the eleventh grade, besides a Yoga book for the Iyengar society that can be used by visually impaired individuals to practise yoga.

Rao also emphasised on the need for tech-based initiatives and said that it will be among one of the primary areas of focus for the years to come.

“I have seen that a lot of start ups are coming up but there are hardly any tech-based start-ups. We have to focus on tech and tech-incubation is what we will focus on in the next few years,” he said.

(With inputs from agencies)