The Dr. Abdul Kalam Science Centre and Planetarium will establish an Innovation Hub to serve as a workspace for students to acquire domain knowledge in specialised areas.
The facility of the Puducherry Council of Science and Technology is being set up by the National Council Science Museum, Government of India, and Government of Puducherry.
Welfare Minister M. Kandasamy led a bhoomi pooja for constructing the facility in the presence of K. Venkatesan, MLA and HPS Sran, Secretary, Science, Technology and Environment.
To cost ₹2.25 crore
One among the three such hubs sanctioned across the country by the Union government, the facility here is being established at an estimated cost of ₹2.25 crore, which would shared between the government at the Centre and State.
Puducherry government’s share of ₹75 lakh was furnished to National Council for Science Museums, Kolkata, last year.
Innovation hub is a space that provides subject matter expertise on technology trends, knowledge and strategic innovation management, and industry-specific insights to students in order to develop the new idea and engage in research.
These hubs aim to enable active knowledge transfer between researchers and business experts, on the one hand, and industry, government and representatives of academia, on the other hand.
Even a common man with an innovative idea can approach the hub to improve it. The facility is proposed to be created in the first floor of the existing Science Centre.
The facilities proposed at the hub are Discovery Hall, which will have 10-15 interactive science exhibits/experiments to stimulate excitement about science through the exploration and discovery of underlying principles and a Hall of Fame to showcase innovative ideas that have transformed our world or have made significant impact on the way we conduct our lives along with respective inventors and innovators.
An Idea Lab will have necessary basic facilities to pursue creative and innovative hobbies/activities that involve model making, basic science experimentation design and fabrication of useful gadgets of practical use, teaching/learning kits for better classroom transactions, testing of samples.
