STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: In a landmark achievement in the field of Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) of microchips and manufacturing, Commissioner Secretary, Science & Technology, Saurabh Bhagat, on Sunday inaugurated Himalayan Chapter of Northern India in IIT, Jammu.
Saurabh Bhagat informed that this new chapter of VLSI Himalayan Chapter would provide an opportunity for IIT, Jammu, to be the fulcrum in research on VLSI, being used extensively in all computing and control devices like mobiles, cameras, automobiles, drones etc. The Northern Chapter shall cater to all Universities, R&D Institutions, IITs, NITs and IISc of states like J&K, Leh, HP and others to engage in the research and joint programmes.
Commissioner Secretary apprised that Jammu & Kashmir has emerged as top performer among all the UTs and the North-Eastern States in the ranking of States on Support to Start-Up Ecosystems. He revealed that states and Union Territories have been classified into five categories including best performers, top performers, leaders, aspiring leaders and emerging start-up ecosystems. Jammu and Kashmir, which has been clubbed with UTs and the North-Eastern states including those having less than one crore population, has emerged as top performer while Meghalaya as best performer, he added.
Pertinently, the Jammu and Kashmir government released a thorough start-up policy in 2018 with the goal of supporting and nurturing establishment of at least 500 new start-ups in J&K over the course of the following ten years. In the past few years, 84 start-ups have been established in J&K.
The rankings are based on the initiatives taken up to develop start-up ecosystem for promoting budding entrepreneurs. The exercise is aimed at supporting states and Union Territories (UTs) in developing their start-up ecosystem and learning from each other’s best practices. States and UTs in the aspiring leaders’ category included Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chandigarh, Puducherry and Nagaland. According to the ranking, the emerging start-up ecosystems category included Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Mizoram and Ladakh. They were evaluated across seven reform areas consisting of 26 action points, ranging from institutional support, fostering innovation, access to market, incubation and funding support.
Saurabh Bhagat divulged that Jammu and Kashmir administration is working to encourage start-ups and foster innovation thereby creating job opportunities in abundance besides raising economic graph of the Union Territory. “Endeavoring to accomplish this stupendous task, J&K government is focusing on sectors such as food processing, agriculture, renewable energy, handicrafts and handloom by vigorously promoting start-ups in these vital sectors”, he added.
Terming start-ups as game changer towards economic growth, Commissioner Secretary said the government is determined to provide incubation and seed funding support to brilliant ideas and solutions. “Our aim is to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation and start-ups in J&K and the synergies between industrial and academic establishments which will encourage and empower young innovators and boost private investment in start-ups”, he maintained.
In this direction, Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was also signed between the J&K Science, Technology & Innovation Council, a scientific organization under the aegis of Science & Technology Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Jammu. Both the organizations will identify the cutting edge technology for development of incubation and innovation ecosystem in various institutes of J&K bridging the research and academic gap in technical institutes of J&K, setting up of capacity development centre on ESDM and VLSI at IIT, Jammu besides working on Robotics Technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other areas of mutual interest and largely which are relevant to the well being of people of J&K.
On the occasion, Professor Dr. Manoj Gaur, Director, IIT, Professor Laxmidhar Behara, Director, IIT, Mandi, Chitra Hariharan, Strategy Head, Intel, Dr. Satya Gupta, President, VLSI Society of India, Rajeev Khashu, Director (Government Affairs), Texas Instrument, Bangalore, Nishit Gupta, Director, Meity, GoI, senior faculty members of IIT, Jammu , delegates from other Universities, students of various schools were present.
During the interactive session, Sanjay Kharoo, Joint Director, S&T Department highlighted the mandate of the department with regard to the promotion of Science, Technology & Innovation.