Manipal: MIT, CII organize Academia- Industry Conclave

Manipal, Sept 15, 2022: Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Mangalore chapter organized the Academy and Industry Conclave 1.0 at Manipal. 

The conclave was attended by Industry and senior faculty members of engineering colleges from Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts.

They discussed plausible collaborations for innovative projects in the recent future. The objective of the conclave was to forge partnerships with industries for academic, research projects, start-ups, and related activities.

Kurma Rao M, Deputy Commissioner, Udupi inaugurated the event. M Venkatesh, Managing Director, MRPL and an alumnus of MIT Manipal, Lt. General (Dr.) M D Venkatesh, Vice Chancellor, Manipal Academy of Higher Education were present.

Dr. Somashekara Bhat, Joint Director, MIT welcomed the guests and delegates and Commander (Dr.) Anil Rana, Director, MIT gave an overview of the program. Gaurav Hegde, Chairman, CII Mangalore gave details about the CII activities in Mangalore and across the country. 

Nagaraj V Nayak, Joint Director – DIC, Andaru Deviprasad Shetty, President – UCCI, K Prashanth Baliga, President – DSIA, Udupi, and Shashidhar Pai Maroor, President – KCCI presented the details of regional industrial activities, clusters, potential challenges and opportunities to the audience.

In his inaugural address, Kurma Rao M lauded the program.

“We encourage the heads of industries interacting with academic institutions to develop innovative solutions for the administration-related problems,” he said.

Lt. Gen. (Dr) M.D Venkatesh said that the mutual engagement between the industry and academia is the key to the development of all the sectors of the economy. 

“We have always focused on providing opportunities to our students to interact with reputed industry experts. The MIT-CII Academy Industry Conclave 1.0 is another step in this direction. Collaborations like these are also essential in exploring industry challenges and collectively finding the solutions,” he said.

In his address, M Venkatesh recollected his student life at Manipal Institute of Technology. 

“An event like this helps industry professionals to stay in touch with academia. At MRPL we have a few ongoing projects with regional academic institutions. We invite the students to carry out industrial training at MRPL as the importance of industry-academia interactions in the present scenario has increased more than ever,” he said.

Gaurav Hegde, Chairman, CII Mangalore stated that there are plenty of potential business opportunities suitable for coastal regions of Karnataka like food and fish processing, eco-friendly plastics, etc but there are also certain challenges like goods transport systems, and employee skill upgradation. Industry academia collaborations can help solve these issues. 

Expressing his happiness about the success of the conclave, Cdr (Dr) Anil Rana said that around 26 industry representatives and the head of CII-Mangalore, KCCI, UCCI, and DSIA along with regional institutes participated in the event. 

The One-Day long Conclave witnessed several activities taking place such as:

• Hackathon which was themed ‘smart roads, transports, and logistics. Hackathon saw a total of 90 students divided across 23 teams hailing from different parts of Udupi and DK district participating in the event. 
• Interactions between start-up innovators and the relevant industries which unraveled conversations that would help start-ups provide their innovations with the best possible commercialization techniques. 
• Showcasing state-of-the-art facilities of regional engineering colleges and exploring Internship & placement opportunities for students. 
• The conclave concluded with a Panel discussion that aimed to help further strengthen Academy and Industry relationship. The biggest highlight of the discussion was the unraveling of the fact that the biggest problem faced by both fields was that of a communication gap between the two. This problem could be solved by initiatives from the Industrial end to share technical and business-related challenges faced by them with the academia to develop viable solutions for the same. This panel discussion forum provided the students with an opportunity for an enriching experiential session.