The Hindu : Kerala / Kochi News : Industry-oriented research among students catching up

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Saturday, Oct 18, 2008
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Industry-oriented research among students catching up

Staff Reporter

Cusat students have come up with innovative ideas

SEAT OF LEARNING: An inside view of Cochin University of Science and Technology.

Kochi: Indian educational institutions have the unenviable reputation of sidestepping industry-oriented research. Although the IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) have lately collaborated with industries on various fronts, the practice has still to seep into the mofussil and rural areas. Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat), however, has been one institution in town that has forayed into upcoming areas of study—for instance, its naval architecture and shipbuilding course is a rarity—besides fostering result-oriented research and study. Another Cusat arm of recent origin that has done really well in research is the marine engineering division.

Jabulu Firoz, a student in the batch that passed out in December last year, along with his coursemates Shijo John, George and a few others, stumbled upon a highly innovative idea—that of developing solar-powered propulsion for a cruise. Under Prof. P.V. Sasikumar’s guidance, they fashioned a working model and won accolades when they presented it at an international exhibition in the city. Says N.G. Nair, course in-charge: “The project was executed in collaboration with the Samudra Shipyards in Aroor. The idea was to ready a small working model in which solar powered batteries replaced the regular two-stroke engine.”

The project managed to catch a lot of attention owing to its originality. “But it couldn’t be commercialised as it was unviable,” says Mr. Nair. “Plus, given that solar-energy cannot be relied upon all the time, it demanded alternative propulsion system as well. Further, initial investment for such a project would be exorbitant. Maybe further research upon this would help resolve such issues.” The Hindu couldn’t contact the students associated with the project as they are all now well-placed with reputed companies, and are all at work at sea.

The marine engineering division apart, Cusat’s computer engineering students have been active in recent times. Inspire 2008, the annual tech festival organised by Aces (Association of Computer Engineering Students) was ample testimony to this. The event this time around introduced robotics successfully. “The robotic soccer game that was played out on a specially built up arena laid emphasis on the technicalities as various teams battled it out on the miniature showground with their miniscule machines,” said Anurag Ojha, a student. Inspire also featured an image processing-based contest, Optika.

The association managed to rope in Manu Zacharia, author of Intrusion Alert - An ethical hacker’s guide to intrusion detections systems and an expert in cyber security, to lead a three-day workshop on ethical hacking and information security. Jay Jacob, co-founder of Indian Linux Users Group (ILUG), Kochi, spoke about security using open source software. Blogger Mani Karthik gave a lecture on blogging and search engine optimisation.

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