India to be start-up hub: DRDO chief

Warangal: The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was encouraging startups and young talents through Defence Technology Development Fund (DTDF) and the 'Dare to Dream' programmes, said its chairperson G Satheesh Reddy. "The idea is to build a strong ecosystem which would foster breakthroughs in important areas such as defence, healthcare, energy and clean technologies etc. At present there are 65,000 start-ups in India as 70 per cent of the engineers chose to return to India," Reddy said, taking part in the 37th and 38th Graduation Day of the Kakatiya Institute of Technology and Science, Warangal, on Sunday.

Kakatiya University Vice-Chancellor Prof. Thatikonda Ramesh praised the institution for nurturing research with I2RE (Innovation Incubation Research and Entrepreneurship) methodology with excellent achievements in solving real world problems at state level. He also advised to focus on applied research by forming consortiums with state level private institutions as competent with Govt. institutions like NITs, IIITs, etc.

KITSW Governing Body Chairman, Capt. V Lakshmikantha Rao suggested that the engineers must work on solving the real world problems instead of running after money.

Principal Prof. K Ashoka Reddy said that there were 12 gold medals awarded for the overall academic excellence in various engineering disciplines for this academic year. "To make the students technically superior and ethically strong by providing advanced versions of technology and highly qualified faculty to the all nine departments which were Tier-1 accredited by the NBA New Delhi. We were part of an Indo-american artificial heart research project. The campus placements for AY 2016-20 61%, 2017-2021 is 73% and 2018-22 batch students have got 95% placements," he said.