Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum, in association with CANEUS International, Canada, and the National Design & Research Forum (NDRF) will organise a two-day international symposium on ‘Inclusive innovation projects for aerospace and energy sectors’ on the Jnana Sangama campus here.
Member of the Planning Commission Narendra Jadhav will inaugurate the event on Friday. Kyle Nunas, Canada’s Consul and Senior Trade Commissioner to India, S.K. Shivakumar, Director, ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore and Millind Pimprikar, chairman, CANEUS International, will be chief guests. VTU Vice-Chancellor H. Maheshappa will preside over it.
The Vice-Chancellor said here on Thursday that the event follows an initiative taken in 2000, to develop a sophisticated, rapid, cost-effective approach to integrate emerging aspects of nanotechnology to aerospace systems, specifically, small satellites. The key stakeholders in this from India, led by NDRF, have teamed up with VTU to host the symposium.
Over 200 stakeholders representing the industry, academia, R&D, and from the public and private sectors, such as end-users, technology developers, policy-makers and funding agencies from Canada, U.S., Japan and Russia, among other countries, and organisations such as NASA and ISRO, will meet at VTU. He said the pioneering approach of CANEUS International has served to create and foster collaborative consortia from across the globe aimed at adapting emerging technologies for socio-economic needs of partner countries.
The event will present and debate over the latest developments and technologies to identify and formulate project concepts, pertaining to socio-economic missions to meet the needs of the country, Dr. Maheshappa said.
In recent years, organisations in India and outside have used small satellites for disaster management, crop forecasting, safety and security purposes.
“Thus, the symposium is a major step towards identifying and developing small satellite technologies for serving the country’s socio-economic needs. This event is unique in that experienced groups and personnel from several countries possessing rich credentials are collaborating and sharing the costs, resources, and risks. The resulting projects will have focus on serving the socio-economic causes and technology needs of India.” This meet is expected to facilitate the creation of a technology-platform and a tangible, working model that could provide long-term sustenance to such collaborations.
