The second phase of NITI Aayog's Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and Russia’s SIRIUS Deep Technology Learning and Innovation Programme 2019 in Sochi comes to an end as 25 Indian students returned today with best practices of contemporary innovation and entrepreneurship.SIRIUS hosted an eight-day project oriented educational program from 28 November to 8 December 2019. It was held in accordance with Memorandum of Understanding signed between AIM and SIRIUS last year.All 50 Russian and Indian students shared best contemporary innovation practices with each other under various categories: IT & Data Analysis, Clean Energy, Biotech, Remote Earth Sensing and Drones & Robotics. Under ‘IT & Data Analysis’, students created a classification of farmland using satellite data and neural network for effective management of crop land.Under ‘Clean Energy’, students created a carbon free energy system/island where researchers from all over the world can lead research on tech advancement. It can sustain energy requirement of up to 600 people. Another interesting prototype under this included a classification model for tree type and forest type for forest resource inventory management. These classifications can help various industrial sectors to automate and manage systems and resources.Similarly, under ‘Drones and Robotics’, an automated dual robot system was created, which, while collecting tea leaves using machine vision algorithms, gets rid of low-quality leaves and shoots, hence improving the quality of the collected tea products. Under ‘Biotech’, students made an optimization of protein isolation methods from bacterial culture by genetic engineering.
It makes the production of therapeutics (Medicine) cheaper and faster. Photo-biotechnology under ‘Biotech’ category was also designed for the production of bio antioxidants from microalgae. It overcomes the problems of food shortage and environment pollution by making better and safe food and absorbing CO2 from the environment for photosynthesis.Under ‘Remote Earth Sensing’, students created an extraction of satellite images. Detailed surveying of the images can help curb deforestation. It helps in quick detection of forest fires, thus enabling remedial steps required. The robotics team created two qualitative prototypes, which were highly praised by the President Putin.While interacting with students, Mission Director AIM R Ramanan who led the Indian delegation to Russia described the programme as an amazing experience for 50 Indian and Russian students to interact and present their joint co-innovations to President Putin at the state of the art Sirius Science and Tech Talent Centre, Sochi Russia. AIM would continue to provide students such opportunities to excel, he added.Emphasizing upon the significance of AIM-SIRIUS programme, Russian student mentor Elmira said that such fruitful and saturated programs, exchange of student ideas on such platform is crucial for India and Russia to share experiences in the sphere of education and to find solutions for future common problems.After returning to India, the Indian Student-Teacher Delegation today interacted and shared their experiences with higher officials including VC NITI Aayog Dr Rajiv Kumar, CEO NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant, MHLC Member AIM, Dr Vijay Chauthaiwale and others.SIRIUS Innovation Festival held in India last year witnessed a delegation of 10 Russian student innovators and 10 Indian innovators from the best performing Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs).