Student innovators at IIT-KGP asked to go green

In the run-up to 'Earth Day' on April 22, the IIT Kharagpur has asked its student entrepreneurs to go green.
"Over 100 student innovators from IIT Kharagpur and from other engineering colleges across West Bengal participated in a workshop designed to enable students to understand 'Green Business' and 'Green Entrepreneurship' and educate them on use of methodologies for identifying criteria to determine which kind of activities should qualify as Green Entrepreneurship," an IIT KGP spokesperson said.
The workshop at IIT KGP campus deliberated on steps - right from the stage of sourcing for material to delivering finished products and services to end users.

The workshop also debunked myths around technologies claiming to be eco-friendly.
"We want our students to deliver a promise for tomorrow's view of green innovation and entrepreneurship for a more sustainable world," the spokesman said.
The workshop 'Engineering green innovation and entrepreneurship towards a sustainable world' was held in association with FICCI Quality Forum.

"We all feel that going digital leads to greener environment as it helps us go paperless. What we fail to realize is that the technology used for digital transactions use several rare earth-elements, which comes from mining and thereby eating up the natural resources," Partha Pratim Das, Head of the department of Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship, IIT KGP, said.

Explaining what the institute wants their student innovators to do, Prof Bhaskar Bhowmick of Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship, IIT KGP, said, "In Indian context our students have to focus on three areas while designing new technology.
"Usage of renewable energy, going for environment friendly materials including usage of recycled waste and ensuring the whole process - right from sourcing of material to production to reaching out to the end user should have minimum or no carbon footprint," he emphasised.
"We want our student innovators to take holistic green approach while developing a technology. We know it will not happen in a day. But we want them to inculcate this habit of thinking green across all stages," Prof Bhowmick said.

Apart from the faculty members of IIT-KGP, industry experts including iMerit CEO Radha Basu dwelt on the merit of co-opting models on enterprise creation with for profit/not-for-profit activities as a green initiative.
BCC&I President Sutanu Ghosh informed students, aiming to begin start-ups, about industry application in the area towards a sustainable world.