To identify rural problems and suggest technical interventions to solve them, the Rural Technology Action Group (RuTAG) at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi has announced the first design competition Rural Innovative Techno hunt. It’s a technical challenge to identify rural problems and suggest solutions.
Dealing With Challenges At Grass-Root Level
The rural sector deals with a number of problems including agriculture and animal husbandry, village industries, education, health, energy resources, water and sanitation and other areas. In order to expose students to these technical problems or challenges at the grass-root level, the RuTAG club was introduced. It was an initiative for Connecting Engineering Minds with the Society.
Three-Stage Competition
For achieving a wide variety of solutions, the competition had no age restriction; it was open to all students, staff and faculty of IIT-Delhi.
The competition was organised in three stages: Concept submission, detailed design, and Prototype development.
The teams selected for stage three will be provided funding of up to Rs 50,000 for prototype development in case the product is hardware. After developing a working prototype, the teams will be required to test it and submit a report. If the product is software, the teams will be required to submit functional software with required GUIs, test the software for realistic situations and submit a report.
Facilitating Internships
The final round candidate will get funds to create prototypes and the final winners will get internship opportunities with reputed companies and institutes in India or abroad. The RuTAG will also facilitate rural or social internship to the winners of Stage three in reputed organisations or institution. Winners of Stage 3 will be awarded a certificate of appreciation along with a plaque. They may also seek a seed grant up to Rs. 2.0 lakhs per project from the Design Innovation Centre of IIT Delhi to carry their idea forward.
