Start-up exhibition grabbing eyeballs

GS Paul

Amritsar, March 16

On the sidelines of the G20 Education Working Group (EdWG) meeting in Amritsar, a multimedia exhibition at Khalsa College is grabbing attention.

Several start-ups showcasing their products and services are participating in the exhibition, which will be open for students, organisations and academies till March 17, between 9.30 and 7pm.

Parminder Singh of Gurdaspur is showcasing a straw management plan. He procures rice straw from farmers and processes it by crushing, mixing and dye pressing to transform the residue into drop ceiling tiles, packing trays, moulds and trays of various varieties. His firm, Agro Stubble Management, has received a grant of Rs 5 lakh under the Rashrtiya Krishi Vikas Yojna of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. “In the beginning we are working on the rice stubble utilisation and management and afterwards we will work to deal with the plastic menace too,” he said.

Another start-up that has caught the fancy is an initiative by Ganga Ram Chauhan from Meerut. Chauhan, innovator and mentor of ACIC MIET Meerut Foundation, has developed a flour grinding machine, which is operated manually by pedalling a stationary cycle-like machine. “This machine can grind around 5-kg flour in just an hour without any fuel. Rather, it is health friendly when one operates it just by cycling. Anyone irrespective of age or gender can operate it,” he said, adding that he too had got Rs 25 lakh grant under the government’s Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna.

The ICMR-Centre for Innovation and Bio-Design (CIBioD), PGIMER, Chandigarh, has set up a pavilion, ‘Futuristic Healthcare Delivery Platform’, for making quality healthcare accessible, affordable and sustainable. In a short duration of three years only, CIBioD has developed a number of innovative technologies