The Government’s SSIP has created a wide range of incentives for innovators and startups. It has been seen that various Universities across the states are now taking concrete measures to implement the policy mandate. The Education Department, in order to benchmark the best performing Innovators/Startups, Institutions, Mentors, Enablers and other contributors organised the SSIP Prashansha Virtual Awards motivating the Initiative taken by students and their mentors. Vadodara based Parul University bagged 7 awards in the SSIP Prashansha Awards under the categories of Campus Startups, Women Startup Award, Young Innovators, Best Faculty Mentors and SSIP Coordinators. These 7 Awards under the above 5 categories are the highest for any university in Gujarat.
A group of Engineering Enthusiasts with Startup AR Explorer was awarded a prize money of Rs 50, 000 under the best Campus startup category. Hetavi Shah, founder of Vatsalya Bakers bagged prize money of Rs 1,00,000 under the Women Startup award. Under the Young Innovators Category, Bhavik Bosamiya came up with a project that helped to determine the strength of concrete by using sensor technology in real-time, for which he was awarded a prize money of Rs 30,000. Moreover, Dr. Shantanu Chakravarty was awarded under the Best SSIP Coordinator – Private University Category and three faculties at Faculty of Pharmacy Dr. Asha Patel, Dr.Hiral Dave and Dr. Rakesh Patel were awarded under the Best Faculty Mentor category.
GISC-SSIP GRANTS
Furthermore, under the GTU Innovation and StartupCenter Bhupesh Goyel and Prashant Khanna, Assistant Professors at the University, came up with a low cost wearable mobile machine that is powered with a combination of technologies enabling the lower limb movement with increased strength and endurance for Paraplegic Patients, for which they received a grant of Rs 1,87,550.
Another Engineering team, Rayscan is working on a health startup that provides support to radiologists with automating analysis of reports using deep learning. This project which received a grant of Rs 1,36,185, is expected to helpradiologists detect lung diseases in seconds.
Harparaom, another engineering team bagged a grant of Rs 1,00,000 for product design that focuses on UV- based large scale impulsive sanitization of fruits and vegetables.
With an aim to contribute towards Swachhata Abhiyan, team Saffindia received a grant of Rs 83,000 for developing a solution for segregation of waste.
To complement the efforts of the students, the University has also been awarded grants of 19.64lacs from the Student Open Innovation Challenge(SOIC), which has been dedicated towards upscaling 22 innovative start up projects. A total of over 70 startups which have been established by the alumni of Parul University, have been creating a nurturing ground for the current students to learn the significance of entrepreneurship in practise.
14 students of the University received grants out of a total of 36 shortlisted students from Universities around the State. The University received a collective total of 6.42 lakhs in the form of grants to further develop their innovative ideas. In addition to this, another total of seven teams from Parul University had their start up ideas selected for further development under the GIC-SSIP challenge. Under this innovative start-up challenge, the team of students and mentors received a total of 4.14lakhs grant, for further project developments.
In yet another addition of the Students Open Innovation Challenge, students of this University have once again raised the city’s essence of innovation. The recently announced results of SOIC’s 7th phase, brought to the spotlight 9 students of Parul University, who received grants totalling to Rs 5.37 Lacs. The challenge included a total of 22 teams from Universities across Gujarat, out of which 40% of the winners were students from Parul University.
Throughout all the SOIC challenges, Parul University has received grants amounting to Rs 31.73 Lacs to support 50 Innovative Projects, as the University has been focusing more on developing within the students a drive for entrepreneurship.
“In these times we are living in, as a University we have been focusing on developing platforms for our students to nurture their competencies in entrepreneurship. We have been encouraging and welcoming innovations from students across multiple fields from pharmacy to engineering and Ayurveda, and seeing so many of our students bag such grants, is really a moment of immense pride for ParulUniversity”, said the University’s President Dr.Devanshu J Patel.
Further, the centre is also planning to organize Flagship Events for the coming years in virtual mode events such as Vadodara Innofest 2.0 which includes Vadodara Startup Festival 2.0, Quarterly Demo Days, Vadodara Hackathon etc
“Seeing our students and faculties develop such innovative projects on such great platforms brings me a great delight. Mainly because as Parul University our main drive is towards cultivating such solution-based thinking, and one of the ways we do this is by encouraging all stakeholders to stand on platforms such as this hackathon” said the University’s Vice President Dr Parul Patel.
