IIT Madras joins hands with six IITs to organise international conference

Chennai: IndianInstitute of Technology Madras is joining hands with the Rural TechnologyAction Groups (RuTAG) of six other IITs to organize a three-day international conference on 'Rural Technology Development and Delivery' with the objective ofattracting more mainstream research in rural technologies.

It is bringing RuTAG teams,faculty and students from IITs in addition to organisations working in relatedfields to discuss achievements, difficulties and the way forward.RuTAG is an initiativeconceptualised and supported by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviserto the Government of India as a mechanism to provide a high demand-driven Scienceand Technology interventions for rural areas through IITs and other technicalinstitutions. RuTAG centres have been established at seven IITs (Madras,Guwahati, Kharagpur, Delhi, Roorkee, Bombay, and Kanpur).

Inhis inaugural address on Thursday, Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi,Director, IIT Madras, said,"This conference is an attempt to deviseinnovative approaches in technology that can yield sustainable solutions torural problems and contribute to a better quality of living. Rural Technologyis a very interesting area. I commend all of you working on this area as youwon't find such interesting problems in conventional areas. A major differencefor researchers working in rural technologies is that the problem statementswill come from environments that are alien to most researchers."

FurtherProf. Bhaskar Ramamurthi said,"The bulk of the people who take up aproblem statement in rural technologies are not from rural India and hence havedifficulty in factoring in aspects other than science and technology. That partof the challenge - understanding the constraints under which the solutions mustwork in Rural India such as Financial, infrastructural and others are also important.Yet, in the next few years, the opportunities are going to be higher asawareness has been increasing across India. I want you all to work more withthe users in partnership mode to get continuous inputs on what will work andwon't work."

Over 150 participants including researchers, policymakers and industry partners are participating in thisconference. Theevent, through paper presentations and speaker discussions, focuses on 'Disseminationand Scaling of Rural Innovations' and is exploring the possibility of attractingfunding through Government schemes and CSR grants, among other options.

Highlightingthe unique aspects of this event, Prof. Abhijit Deshpande, Faculty In-charge,RuTAG, IIT Madras, said, "The conference aims to look at bestpractices in the field of rural technology development and delivery. The ideabehind setting up RuTAG centers in IITs is to create action groups that canbridge the gap between needs identified for rural livelihoods and academiciansas solution providers. It has been 15 years since we set up the RuTAG centre atIIT Madras and we have spearheaded 60-odd projects in different areas so far,out of which for around 20 projects, we have developed prototypes for the enduser. Another five projects have even reached the point of wide dissemination -which is a good track record."