Mr. Ashish Bhat
BTech, 2007, Electrical Engineering

Mr. Ashish Bhat is the Co-Founder and Vice President (Research and Development) at ideaForge Technology – a design focussed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) manufacturer of drones for defense, homeland security, and industrial applications. He received his B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 2007.

A technologist to the core, Mr. Bhat has been working tirelessly with ideaForge Technology to develop state-of-the-art solutions for the forces. The systems are designed to be fully autonomous so that they can be operated with minimal training. Currently, ideaForge has deployed over 800 systems and has trained over 1300 pilots in service which is testament of the popularity of the systems with the forces.

At ideaForge, Mr. Bhat ensures the UAV systems perform flawlessly in the toughest of conditions and develops innovative solutions to meet ever-growing customer demands. Over the years, ideaForge has participated in several tenders released by the forces, some spontaneous and some based on demonstrations and subsequent customer interest.

Mr. Bhat has always taken up the challenge of customizing existing technology or creating new solutions within highly-limited timeframes. As a result, he and his team has not only won the tenders that were seeded on demonstrations, but also spontaneous tenders. ideaForge bagged these opportunities against firms from USA, Israel, Europe and India as well.

Mr. Bhat is proud of the fact that ideaForge systems have proven to be lifesaving tools in major anti-terror operations, disaster management and crowd management in the Indian subcontinent.

Mr. Bhat holds eight patents to his name which demonstrates his passion for technology. He has been listed among ‘Innovators Under 35’ by MIT Technology Review, Young Indian Leaders by CNN-IBN, Best Autonomous Hovering Vehicle in the first US-Asian Demonstration and Assessment of Micro Aerial, and Unmanned Ground Vehicle Technology. He has also been awarded and honored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for developing the world’s smallest and lightest autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle in 2010.

Special Memories

“IIT Bombay gave me the right platform to hone my skills in robotics. From my very first year, I started participating in challenging autonomous robotics competitions and became one of the most peer-respected young technology wizards from IIT Bombay. I also dominated Micro-mouse for several years and received a Roll of Honor from the student body of IIT Bombay for my stupendous achievements in technical extra-curricular activities. Outside academics, I also won the Best Guitarist award at Mood Indigo”.