IIT Madras has launched the third edition of the Carbon Zero Challenge (CZC) competition today, August 24 at an event on its campus. The competition will encourage the development of sustainability and entrepreneurial thinking at academic and research labs where technology development flourishes. Professor V Kamakoti, Director, in the presence of CZC Principal Coordinator, Professor Indumathi M Nambi and other stakeholders inaugurated the event. The candidates can apply for IIT Madras CZC 2022 through the website – czeroc.in till September 24.
The theme for CZC 2022 is CZC for ‘CRC' or ‘Circularity in Resources Conservation.' The idea is to highlight the need to balance demand and earth's supply through resource conservation, rethinking design and materials to enable reduction, recycling, recovery and reuse of resources. The industry and public service systems need non-polluting technology to achieve this and low carbon, land footprint.
The shortlisted teams will get funding and mentorship support to establish start-ups and take their idea to the market through commercialization. In addition, CZC 2022 winners will get Rs 10 lakh as a start-up seed grant and continued support from IIT Madras such as access to IIT Madras incubation resources and angel and venture capital funding.
The competition is expecting a good mix of applications from academics, research labs and early-stage start-ups. Around 100 teams are expected to be shortlisted by October 2022, of which 25 teams will be given prototype funding up to Rs five lakh per team.
The teams will also be trained to sharpen their market orientation and entrepreneurial quotient and develop the sustainability report for their product to market it as a clean-tech company. The teams will be connected to experts in industry and academia to hone their technical and business skills.
Addressing the launch event, Professor V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said, “Based on experiences gained from previous editions of CZCs and other research initiatives, IIT Madras is going to establish a ‘School of Sustainability' that will work towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). CZC 2022 is going to give us a feel of challenges and technology needs in the field so that our research, course curriculum and other activities are targeted towards solving issues in meeting SDGs and the overall direction of this upcoming School of Sustainability.”
Professor V Kamakoti added, “Seed funding is important to convert an idea into a working prototype and support teams through preincubation and incubation. HomoSEP, which was supported during the earlier editions of CZC, has converted into a product and the third device has been given recently to a family member of a person who was engaged in manual scavenging.”
Professor V Kamakoti further said, “IIT Madras will open up its patenting mechanism to the participants of this contest to get their innovations patented. The institute also has a strong incubation ecosystem that can help start-ups mature and convert their ideas into a viable business.”
Highlighting the key focus areas of CZC 2022, its Principal Coordinator, Professor Indumathi M Nambi, Faculty, Department of Civil Engineering Department, IIT Madras, said, “CZC 2022 would focus on fostering innovative solutions incorporating circularity and sustainability for managing and conserving the following resources - air, water, soil, materials, and energy. The competition will focus its target applicant pool on teams that have already demonstrated and validated lab-scale proof of concept, with a clear technological advancement.”
Further, Professor Indumathi M Nambi said, “The focus will be on technologies that aid in the recovery of resources and pollution mitigation that are not receiving sufficient attention from the investment community. The proposed solutions by teams participating in this competition should have low carbon, water and eco-footprint and have a large societal impact.”
The key aspects of Carbon Zero Challenge 2022 include a wider range of solutions, faculty-led and research scientist-led teams and a focus on the commercialisation of research.
