Mumbai: PM Modi virtually inaugurates new IIT-B research park

Nearly a decade since its establishment the Indian Institute of Technology Bombays IITB research park saw the inauguration of its permanent home The foundation building of IITBs new research park was virtually inaugurated on Tuesday afternoon by Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with several other educational infrastructures across the country Senior BJP leader and MP from Mumbai NorthEast Manoj Kotak attended the physical inauguration eventAbout the research parkFollowing the success story of the IIT Madras Research Park the Ministry of Education formerly the Ministry of Human Resource Development decided to fund research parks at IIT Kharagpur and IITB The institute in Mumbai had submitted its proposal in 2013 which was approved in 2014 and operations commenced in May 2015 Known as ASPIRE the IITB Research Park Foundation IITBRPF is a nonprofit entity aimed at accelerating innovation and research to achieve impactful outcomes ASPIRE began attracting companies in February 2017 and currently the research park hosts 43 associate and client member companiesMP Manoj Kotak centre lighting the lamp for the inauguration eventFrom 2017 to 2023 some companies had physical offices on campus while others engaged virtually The research park team arranged an interim arrangement allowing ten companies to colocate and commence work on campus These companies include Applied Materials Ubisoft India Studios Everest Construction NanoSniff Technologies and several startups Additionally 33 companies collaborate virtuallyThe park facilitates collaborations between faculties and companies based on mutual interests with a strong focus on fields like healthcare quantum computing emobility and carbon capture Many faculty members are engaged in areas such as artificial intelligence AI data science energy cyber security and sustainability with significant involvement in AI and machine learning ML With the research park now settled in its permanent home the institute anticipates the number of companies to increase to 7580 The goal is to foster more industryacademia collaborations in research and development and provide internships for IITBs BTech and MTech studentsInauguration highlightsOn Tuesday PM Modi virtually inaugurated educational infrastructures worth over Rs 13000 crore at 83 locations These include the permanent campuses of 10 new IITs three new IIMs Indian Institute on Management 12 central universities 25 Kendriya Vidyalayas 14 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas and two skilling institutes He also laid the foundation stones for five Kendriya Vidyalaya campuses one Navodaya Vidyalaya campus and five multipurpose halls for Navodaya Vidyalayas nationwide Furthermore Modi inaugurated the All India Institute of Medical Sciences AIIMS at Vijaypur Samba in Jammu Established under the central sector schememdashPradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojanamdashthe institute spans over 227 acres and is equipped with 720 beds a medical college a nursing college and an AYUSH block