Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) Secretary Shri Alkesh Kumar Sharma launched the ‘Graphene-Aurora program’ at a function in Maker Village Kochi, Kerala today.
The program shall be implemented by Digital University Kerala with joint funding from Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India and Government of Kerala and Industry partners, with the total budget outlay of Rs 94.85 Crore, wherein, Carborundum Pvt Limited joined as one of the main industry partners. Along with the startup products developed, the technologies and products also developed at research and development centers like India Innovation Centre Graphene (IICG), setup at Makers village, Kochi shall be considered for commercialization.
Addressing the gathering, Shri Alkesh Kumar Sharma said that a section 8 company (not for profit) called ‘India Graphene Engineering and Innovation Centre (I-GEIC)’ shall be set up and the initial operations will start from the recently opened facility of Government of Kerala at Digital Science Park in Trivandrum. It shall fill the gap between R&D and commercialization by providing a complete facility to startup and industry.
The Secretary, MeitY mentioned that it shall nurture the deep/emerging Graphene technology & innovation ecosystem that can guide, develop, implement, and support SMEs and startups to commercialize developed graphene technologies for scale adoption. He also mentioned that creation of a commercialization eco-system for graphene as an emerging technology would help India take a pole position in the world’s new material market.
Shri Alkesh Kumar Sharma also announced the progress and contributions of Maker Village, to the development of hardware startups in the country, and assured MeitY’s support for the creation of a complete ecosystem for Electronics Product Testing. He also appreciated the outcomes of other MeitY funded Centre of Excellence on IIOT Sensors and India Innovation Centre for Graphene that complements the solutions from materials, sensors to system integration that electronic product development.
Dr Rathan Kelkar, IAS, Secretary, Department of Electronics and IT, GoK; Shri. Suman Billa IAS, Principal Secretary Industries Department, GoK; Dr. Saji Gopinath, Vice Chancellor, Digital University Kerala; Smt Sunita Verma, Group Coordinator, MeitY; Prof Alex James, CI, Graphene Aurora program, and Shri Kamesh Gupta, Co-CI, Graphene Aurora; Dr. P S Jayan, Carborundum Private limited were also present on the occasion.