At the entrance of the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi, every car is put through the usual security checks.
However, security check under the car here is not the usual mirror-at-the-end-of-a-stick business, but an automated system that is connected to the main monitor, that can tell in an instant if something is wrong.
This old innovation by the faculty is now part of campus life, just like waterless urinals that have made the smell associated with public urinals disappear, and their intra-communications systems that has replaced files and made administrative life that much easier.
Using the latest innovations and technologies of its faculty and students for better functioning is now the norm at the Institute.
“You cannot claim to be at the cutting edge of technology if you have to wait for weeks on end to get the correct signature sanctioning your travel plans or leave,” said Professor Suneet Tuli.
His job as Dean of Research and Development, involves approving any research plans that the faculty is undertaking as well as countless other ancillary actions that arise from this.
His innovation — “Iris” — is an intranet communications system that links the entire faculty.
“Want approval for recruiting assistants? Just write a note on this system; Want to go abroad for a seminar? Just write a note and the requisite authorities approve it through the system,” he said, adding most failures in India can be attributed to files not moving and people wasting time trying to check up on them.
“Piles and piles of paperwork that needed signatures, with clerks carrying it to and fro, phone calls from faculty and students asking the status of their applications — all this has vanished. We may be functioning out of a building that was made in the 1970s, but we do not really function like we are in the 1970s,” he said.
