KARUNYA’S SOLUTIONS FOR GLOBAL WELLBEING

Coimbatore based deemed-to-be university, Karunya Institute of Technology & Sciences (KITS) is fast emerging as a powerhouse in both academics and research with the highest NAAC A++ accreditation, and with funded projects worth Rs 25 crore, more than 100 patent applications, 14 granted patents, and 6300 papers in Scopus and WoS indexed journals.

Imagine Artificial Intelligence based traffic control. Or imagine waste collecting robots. Or hybrid rocket motors. Or smart bio polymers, or nanoparticles for meat preservation. These are all cutting-edge products and solutions from various technology domains that not even the most innovative company in the world may not be able to create on its own. Yet, students of a deemed-to-be university in India, the Tamil Nadu based Karunya Institute of Technology & Sciences (KITS), could recently organise a twoday national level event - Mindkraft 23 - that witnessed all these state-of-the-art products and solutions, with the event serving as a perfect launchpad for such brilliant and innovative ideas of budding technologists from all over the nation. Around 150 teams participated in this flagship event of Karunya Deemed University which also saw 90 technical events. The brainchild of noted educationist and Karunya Chancellor Dr. Paul Dhinakaran, the brilliance of Mindkraft 23 was really in the fact that it was the Karunya students who organised the entire event. Obviously, students learn best when they do things for themselves. They were supported by the university’s various departments including the high-tech departments of Aerospace Engineering, Robotics & Automation, Nano Science, and other such faculties. Mindkraft 23 provided a platform for students to explore, collaborate, and find innovative solutions to complex challenges aligned with the 17 Sustainable Development

Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations and the four key research domains of Karunya viz. food, water, energy, and health. Earlier, Karunya Deemed University’s students had won the prestigious Intel Unnati Grand Challenge. A team of students from Karunya’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering, had developed a decision support system for traffic control using state-of-the-art technology. Interestingly, this was possible due to the university facilitating an Intel Unnati Lab at Karunya campus, whose Upsquare Extreme Edge Computing device was used to build a prototype of this decision support system. Coimbatore based Karunya has also been awarded with the highest NAAC A++ grade. The university had excelled in the NAAC assessment of its laboratories, infrastructure, funded projects, patents and research papers. KITS has been following an Industry 4.0 compliant curriculum as well as digital teaching and learning practices using state of the art infrastructure. It is emerging as a powerhouse in research with funded projects worth Rs 25 crore, more than 100 patent applications, 14 granted patents, and 6300 papers in Scopus and WoS indexed journals. One of the leaders in startup incubation and entrepreneurship, Karunya has a Section 8 company dedicated to incubation and entrepreneurship. Karunya is also home to 25 technology missions in some of the most pressing areas of concern, and it has unique facilities like a laboratory sponsored by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries and a laboratory supported by the Nano Mission. Its Aerospace Engineering laboratory boasts of supersonic and subsonic wind tunnels and it also has several industry partnered laboratories with tech majors like Siemens, IBM, Cisco, Nvidia, Suez, AMZ Automotive and Tessolve, which make the Karunya students industry ready by the time they graduate.