S. Vishnu Sharma
Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) has joined hands with other IITs in the country to organise international conference on rural technology development and delivery. The three day conference starting from 12 March is being organised by by IIT-M in association with Rural Technology Action Groups (RuTAG) of six other IITs.
Over 150 participants including researchers, policymakers and industry partners are participating in this conference. The event, through paper presentations and speaker discussions, focuses on ‘Dissemination and Scaling of Rural Innovations’ and is exploring the possibility of attracting funding through Government schemes and CSR grants, among other options.
The event is being organised with a motive of attracting more mainstream research in rural technologies. Director of IIT-M Bhaskar Ramammurthi speaking at the inauguration of the conference said this conference is an attempt to devise innovative approaches in technology that can yield sustainable solutions to rural problems and contribute to a better quality of living.
IITs focus on rural technology development
Rural technology is a very interesting area. I commend all of you working on this area as you won’t find such interesting problems in conventional areas. A major difference for researchers working in rural technologies is that the problem statements will come from environments that are alien to most researchers, he said.
He further said The bulk of the people who take up a problem statement in rural technologies are not from rural India and hence have difficulty in factoring in aspects other than science and technology. That part of the challenge – understanding the constraints under which the solutions must work in Rural India such as financial, infrastructural and others are also important.
Yet, in the next few years, the opportunities are going to be higher as awareness has been increasing across India. ‘I want you all to work more with the users in partnership mode to get continuous inputs on what will work and won’t work.’
Professor Abhijit Deshpande, Faculty In-charge, RuTAG, IIT Madras, said the conference aims to look at best practices in the field of rural technology development and delivery. The idea behind setting up RuTAG centers in IITs is to create action groups that can bridge the gap between needs identified for rural livelihoods and academicians as solution providers.
RuTAG is an initiative conceptualized and supported by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India as a mechanism to provide a high demand-driven Science and Technology interventions for rural areas through IITs and other technical institutions. RuTAG centers have been established at seven IITs namely at Madras, Guwahati, Kharagpur, Delhi, Roorkee, Bombay, and Kanpur.