New lab at IET to help new engineers innovate; Panel To Work Out Modalities

LUCKNOW: Budding engineers will soon get a platform to innovate. With the coming up of MIT ‘Urban Living Lab’ (ULL) under the Innovation and Incubation Centre at the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET), an autonomous constituent institute of UP Technical University (UPTU) students will get the chance to convert their ideas into reality.
University’s academic council on Saturday, in principle, agreed for setting up of the centre.MoU between MIT, Cambridge and UPTU will be signed in January-end. The academic council also constituted a three-member committee to work out the modalities for setting up three more such centres in UP. Besides IET, the proposed centres will be at KNIT, Sultanpur; HBTI, Kanpur and MMM University, Gorakhpur.
Going beyond the known boundaries and disciplines, the lab encourages the most unconventional mixing and matching of seemingly disparate research areas, said UPTU officials. It will have mentors from MIT and world class facility that will support and nurture them to innovate. Learning resources again from MIT will be available to the students and faculty.
For entry in the ULL, an online portal will be created where students will submit their ideas. An expert committee will shortlist the ideas. Selected students will be part of the innovation centre.
The academic council also gave a go ahead for setting up of Institute of Research and Entrepreneurship and Institute of Skill Development. The two institutes will come up in Barabanki where university’s land is lying vacant.
In the upcoming Institute of Design in Noida, it was decided that two M Tech courses will run from academic session 2015-16. These will be M Tech in Advanced Structural Design and Technology and M Tech in Green Energy Process Design and Technology. While the latter will be mentored by KNIT, Sultanpur, the former will be mentored by IET, Lucknow.
Box I
Doctorate for Akhilesh
After father, it’s now the turn of the son to get PhD Honoris Causa. UP Technical University will confer honorary doctorate to UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav in its convocation scheduled on January 12. Earlier, his father and SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav was awarded Honoris Causa of DLitt for his `social work’ by Shakuntala Misra Rehabilitation University in its first convocation held in September end.
According to UPTU officials, Akhilesh’s role in eradicating corruption from the university is unprecedented. “Instead of succumbing, chief minister took a tough stand against the former registrar, US Tomer and relived him of his duties,’’ said officials. Tomer was accused of irregularities in the affiliation process for the academic session 2013-14 and 2014-15.
Box II.
Degrees and medals
As many as 76,496 students will be awarded degrees in the 12th convocation of UPTU. This includes 55,905 for B Tech, 12,466 for MBA, 4,113 for MCA, 2,884 for B Pharma, 240 for BHMCT, 275 B Arch, 33 for BFAD, 360 M Tech, and 222 for M Pharma. A total of 48 medals will be given. This includes 16 each of gold silver, and bronze.