Tech For Sustainable Development

IIT Bombay’s Annual CSR Conclave 2022

Event Date: 6th July

Venue: Victor Menezes Convention Centre (VMCC) - IIT Bombay

Event Summary

About the Conclave

IIT Bombay, an “Institution of Eminence” held the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) conclave on July 6, 2022. The conclave allowed for socially conscious corporates and CSR heads to partner with the Institute on several pioneering projects to address wide-ranging national and global challenges such as climate change, health sciences, sustainability, advanced manufacturing, and more, and create a tangible societal impact by way of technological innovations and solutions.

Attending the conclave enabled corporates to sharpen their CSR strategies and make their outcomes more impactful and measurable, witness the cutting-edge research and infrastructure projects currently underway at the Institute, and interact and collaborate with India’s premier science and engineering institution, globally competitive and recognised researchers and faculty, and some of the brightest minds in the country.

Key Themes
Panel Sessions Overview

Panelists & Speakers for 2022

S. Sudarshan
Prof. S. Sudarshan

Deputy Director, Academic and Infrastructural Affairs (AIA)

Amarjeet Sinha
Mr. Amarjeet Sinha

Former Advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office and Retired IAS Officer

Sujata Saunik
Ms. Sujata Saunik

Additional Chief Secretary, Department of General Administration, Government of Maharashtra (India)

Ravindra D. Gudi
Prof. Ravindra D. Gudi

Dean, Alumni and Corporate Relations; Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Sandeep Anand
Prof. Sandeep Anand

Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Rajendra V. Gandhi
Mr. Rajendra V. Gandhi

Managing Director of GRP Limited

Ravishankar Gedela
Mr. Ravishankar Gedela

Chief Executive Officer, IIT Bombay Development and Relations Foundation (IITBDRF)

Subimal Ghosh
Prof. Subimal Ghosh

Professor, Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas, IIT Bombay

Shireesh B Kedare
Prof. Shireesh B Kedare

Professor, Department of Energy Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay

Gurpreet Kohli
Mr. Gurpreet Kohli

Global Program Director ( R & D ), Fabric Solutions / Laundry, Unilever

Guruswamy Kumaraswamy
Prof. Guruswamy Kumaraswamy

Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Pawan Mehndiratta
Mr. Pawan Mehndiratta

Head, Corporate Centre - Tech & Manufacturing, L&T Green Energy

Lipi Mehta
Ms. Lipi Mehta

Head Outreach & Partnerships, Paani Foundation

D. Parthasarathy
Prof. D. Parthasarathy

Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Science, IIT Bombay

Rushin Patel
Mr. Rushin Patel

Regional CSR Head- Mumbai & other Districts, Adani Foundation

Devdip Purkayastha
Prof. Devdip Purkayastha

Professor-of-Practice, Desai Sethi School of Entrepreneurship, IIT Bombay

Ganesh Ramakrishnan
Prof. Ganesh Ramakrishnan

Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay; Professor-in-Charge, Koita Centre for Digital Health

Bakul Rao
Prof. Bakul Rao

Professor, Professor, Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas (CTARA), IIT Bombay

B Ravi
Prof. B Ravi

Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Principle Investigator, Biomedical Engineering and Technology Innovation Centre, IIT Bombay

Swapan Ray
Mr. Swapan Ray

Honorary Secretary, Indian Centre for Plastic in the Environment and Sr. Vice President (Petrochemicals), Reliance Industries Limited.

Abdur Rub
Dr. Abdur Rub

Chief Executive Officer, Wadhwani Research Centre for Bioengineering

Yogendra Shastri
Prof. Yogendra Shastri

Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Srivalli Shrikanth
Dr. Srivalli Shrikanth

Professor and Head of Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, MGM Institute of Health Sciences, Navi Mumbai

Suneet Singh
Prof. Suneet Singh

Head of Department of Energy Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay

Chetan Singh Solanki
Prof. Chetan Singh Solanki

Department of Energy Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay

Siddharth Tallur
Prof. Siddharth Tallur

Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Ravindra Utgikar
Dr. Ravindra Utgikar

Vice President - Corporate Strategy & Marketing, Praj Industries Ltd.

Sponsors & Partners for 2022

aGENDA for 2022

The event was conduceted in series of panel discussions and presentations, head over to Panel Summary section to get the summary of event

  • Registrations and Tea

    6th July | 9:00 am - 9:30 am 

  • WELCOME address

    By Prof. S. Sudarshan, Deputy Director, Academic and Infrastructural Affairs (AIA)

    6th July | 9:30 am - 9:45 am 

  • KEYNOTE

    Address by Keynote Speaker

    6th July | 9:45 am - 10:05 am 

  • KEYNOTE

    Create impact by supporting R&D at IIT Bombay- Overview

    6th July | 10:05 am - 10:25 am 

  • Break

    Tea / Coffee

    6th July | 10:25 am - 10:45 am

  • Presentation

    Rural Development through Technology Solutions

    6th July | 10:45 am - 11:05 am

  • Panel Discussion

    Climate Change Mitigation through Technology and Innovations

    6th July | 11:05 am - 11:50 am

  • Panel Discussion

    Clean Energy Solutions

    6th July | 11:50 am - 12:35 pm 

  • Break

    Lunch

    6th July | 12:35 pm - 1:30 pm

  • Panel Discussion

    Healthcare and Biosciences: Key Challenges and Technology Solutions

    6th July | 1:30 pm - 2:15 pm 

  • Presentation

    Challenges in India’s Transition to Electric Mobility

    6th July | 2:15 pm - 2:35 pm 

  • Panel Discussion

    Circular Economy

    6th July | 2:35 pm - 3:20 pm

  • Break

    Tea / Coffee

    6th July | 3:20 pm - 3:35 pm

  • Panel Discussion

    Tech Entrepreneurship: Driving India’s Growth

    6th July | 3:35 pm - 4:20 pm  

  • Presentation

    Sustainability Aspects in Chemical and Pharma Manufacturing

    6th July | 4:20 pm - 4:40 pm  

  • Break

    High tea

    6th July | 4:40 pm - 5:30 pm 

Key Themes for 2022

IIT Bombay is an ‘Institute of Eminence’, dedicated to academics and research, and the premier choice for students across India. As part of the Institute’s 2030 vision, IIT Bombay aspires to break into the top 50 universities in the world. To continue providing its students with a world-class educational experience the Institute requires globally competitive infrastructure including Centres of Excellence, smart classrooms, world-class hostel facilities, state-of-the-art labs where students and faculty can pursue groundbreaking research, and more.

To know more about IIT Bombay’s CSR research projects, click here

The recent pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of our healthcare system. Low-cost healthcare is the immediate need of the hour and can be facilitated through several initiatives including drug discovery, translation work, and scaling of essential drugs. An affordable healthcare system requires low-cost diagnostic tools which can diagnose illnesses at the onset, leverage advances in medical technology pertaining to contagious diseases, provide digital health services including therapy, and increasing the density of primary and secondary healthcare centers across the country. 

To know more about IIT Bombay’s CSR research projects, click here

More than 60% of India’s population lives in rural areas and depends on agriculture for their livelihood. The recent pandemic wreaked havoc on the farming community with an influx of laborers who migrated from cities and returned to their villages. Unfortunately, while urban entrepreneurs are often encouraged, rural and agricultural entrepreneurs barely get the support that they often need. The Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas (CTARA) at IIT Bombay provides various initiatives including the Rural Technology Action Group, Unnat Bharatiya Abhiyan, and more, to bring about a transformational change in the development of the country’s rural areas and create a more inclusive India. CTARA also supports initiatives to increase employment opportunities in rural India and supports rural entrepreneurs.

To know more about IIT Bombay’s CSR research projects, click here

For a planet and its people to live, breathe and lead a sustainable life, the balance across all five of nature’s elements – earth, fire, water, wind, and space – need to be preserved and nurtured. Corporates and industries are shifting focus on ethical sustainability initiatives for preserving our natural resources. While nature’s capital may be free and help in the economic growth of the industry, it does not translate to sustained development. Corporates and industries have been recognizing the need to focus on being development-oriented instead of growth-oriented.

To know more about IIT Bombay’s CSR research projects, click here

For creating societal and industrial impact and development, educational institutes are increasingly focusing on building the individual employability skill set of their students, as well as instilling in their students the mindset to become entrepreneurs, who can create employment opportunities for others. At IIT Bombay, the Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) and the Desai Sethi School of Entrepreneurship (DSSE) play a vital role in supporting budding student-entrepreneurs and mentoring them in translating technologies and creating job opportunities for others.

To know more about IIT Bombay’s CSR research projects, click here

IIT Bombay is committed to the cause of women’s empowerment and social and policy development toward nation-building. With the former, the next generation of women students will join a legacy of highly accomplished women graduates from the Institute. IIT Bombay has introduced several key initiatives that have resulted in enrolling over 2,800+ women at the Institute in 2022. These initiatives include supernumerary seats to increase the number of female students to 20%, becoming a part of the Gender Advancement for Transforming Institutions (GATI) initiative, establishing more Women Chair Professorships, building an exclusive state-of-the-art women’s hostel on campus, and more. For the latter cause of policy development toward nation-building, the educational programmes in Planning and Development will allow students to get a holistic understanding of the socio-economic realities in our country. Students can formulate and implement development policies that can bring about desirable, stable, and sustainable development in India.

To know more about IIT Bombay’s CSR research projects, click here

Note: Each of these themes were represented in the form of thematic zones at the conclave

Event Gallery

Sneak peak into Event day images

press coverage

Event Summary

Checkout Panel Discussion Summary from the Event

Objective: How CSR can help IITB in developing climate services for different sectors?

Key actions & outcomes from the discussion:

  1. There is a need for multi-disciplinary approaches to tackling issues of climate change.
  2. Participatory modelling is a must. Involvement of all the stakeholders including implementation organizations, policy makers, industry and more.
  3. The work should be led by the community and for the community and should be guided by academic organisations.
  4. There should be a balance of CSR support for technology development and implementation on the ground.
  5. Development should not conflict with sustainability. Rather, they should co-benefit where, ideally, development should lead to sustainability.

Conclusion:

With the support of CSR - the government, academic organizations, NGOs, and stakeholders should work together and create a better adaptation strategy to tackle climate change.

Objective:  How to mitigate climate change through clean and green energy solutions, social engineering, and energy transition?       

Key actions & outcomes from the discussion:

  1. Energy transition is moving away from hydrocarbon energy sources to carbohydrate-based energy sources such as biofuels. Bioenergy is emerging as a promising alternative energy source for sustainable development.
  2. Hydrogen will play a critical role in India’s economy and energy targets. The country should focus on indigenous R&D and manufacturing to become self-reliant.
  3. Nuclear energy can be a part of the solution to mitigate climate change. However, there are issues of safety, waste storage, cost, and a long period of payback of the capital investment.
  4. The world needs to rethink and redesign energy systems for a sustainable future. The need of the hour is for the world to follow the AMG mode – 1. Avoid the use of energy, 2. Minimize the use of energy and 3. Generate energy from clean sources.
  5. Research should be utilized towards technology innovations that can greatly help reduce the cost of energy production.

Conclusion: There are multiple clean energy solutions to help mitigate climate change. We must prepare society for climate change by making them energy literate and adopting lifestyle changes to reduce the overall consumption of energy.

Objective: To discuss key bottlenecks in the healthcare space and how innovations from IITB can help mitigate them. Also, discuss the key current developments, and the role healthcare innovators can play in how healthcare solutions are invented and implemented.

Key actions & outcomes from the discussion:

  1. Panellists discussed the many bottlenecks within innovation translation and emphasized the barriers between engineering and medical institutions. They also recommended a closer interaction between these institutions.
  2. The panel looked at India-specific challenges in healthcare and MedTech, especially the heavy dependence on imports. Panellists discussed specific examples of innovations originating from IITB and urged the need to foster innovation that is specific to India in the future.
  3. Panellists discussed the role of data, interoperability and close stakeholder collaboration for requirement gathering, design, innovation, testing, and validation.
  4. The panel recognised the role of CSR funding in enabling the healthcare and MedTech translational ecosystem. They recommended that CSR participate in specific projects with short-, mid-, and long-term objectives as per their mandate and focus.

Conclusion:

The healthcare and MedTech translational ecosystem must tightly integrate with physician and healthcare delivery stakeholders to innovate solutions for India. This will ensure not only self-reliance in healthcare but also improve the effectiveness of the overall Indian healthcare ecosystem.

Objective: The key objective was to address the major challenges and opportunities in the circular economy space and identify areas in which academia and industry can collaborate to solve local and regional problems.

Key actions & outcomes from the discussion: The panel experts opined that greater use of bio-based and renewable raw materials is required to drive the circular economy forward. They pointed out that many products, particularly personal care products, have a variety of harmful chemicals, and reducing their use and making them environmentally benign is necessary. In terms of plastic, the panellists acknowledged that while plastics do improve the quality of life, strategies for the sustainable use of plastics through a circular economy need to be developed.  Finally, the panellists concluded that it is critical to creating social awareness to promote and practice circularity, reduce consumption, develop quantitative measures and disseminate them to the public.

Conclusion: Circular economy is essential to achieving sustainable development goals. Strategies based on holistic thinking and greater societal awareness are required if the circular economy has to be successfully adapted in our society.

Objective:  To discuss the creation of a collaborative framework whereby IIT Bombay can partner with industry and enable tech entrepreneurship and help accelerate India's growth

 Key actions & outcomes from the discussion:

  1. Entrepreneurs in the technology domain play a key role in India's growth.
  2. CSR is about to complete a decade since its inception. While CSR spending and projects have gone up significantly across the country, most projects are still very difficult to scale, are implemented through a large number of CSR partners, and the quality and impact of these projects are difficult to monitor.
  3. CSR’s focus and spending on technology initiatives are still very meager and there is barely any significant industry-academic collaboration.
  4. In the upcoming decade, India’s growth will see an increase in CSR spending.
  5. The focus and increase in CSR spending can benefit from a Technology Enabled CSR 2.0 Vision. This can significantly enhance the reach, impact, quality, and cost efficiency of CSR projects.
  6. The panellists also discussed a few tech-based projects such as Robotics Lab-in-a-Box & Automated Impact Assessment Platform and agreed that CSR 2.0 is a worthwhile vision to implement.

Time frame:

Short Term - Create the Technology Enabled CSR 2.0 Vision & potential adoption plans.

Medium Term - Demonstrate early success stories implemented jointly by IIT Bombay and industry partners.

Long Team - Implement and expand the academic-industry partnership

Conclusion:

IIT Bombay DRF Team will facilitate work groups to (a) Flesh out the details of a Technology Enabled CSR 2.0 Vision and potential adoption pathways and (b) Create and publicize a few early success stories.

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay’s Ideas and Innovations for Society

Learn More

Download Report

Note: More projects were displayed during the CSR conclave on July 6th.

Contact Us

Queries?

To learn more about the CSR projects at IIT Bombay, get in touch at:
Telephone: 022-2576-4889, 2576-7023
Email: dean.acr.office@iitb.ac.in; corporate@acr.iitb.ac.in

Follow Us
Copyright © 2022. All Rights Reserved
Designed and Developed By Chimpzlab