IIT’s environment-friendly competition goes national

IIT Madras has taken the second edition of its pioneering CZeroC national and is reaching out to environmental entrepreneurs, start-ups and educational institutions across the country. 

This is one-of-its-kind initiative in collaboration with Virtusa, a global information technology services company, and Industrial Waste Management Association (IWMA), a non-profit organization. 

The competition timeline aligns with the academic calendar to encourage student teams to carry out the CZeroC project as part of their curriculum requirement itself. The competition requires participants to go through a ‘customer discovery’ phase for pertinent problem identification, market assessment and entrepreneurship training before building the prototype. 

Addressing the launch function, Dr Rajendra Kumar, Principal Secretary, Industries Commissioner, and Director of Industries and Commerce, Tamil Nadu, said, “India has the third largest ecosystem for start-ups with over five billion USD funding every year. Yet, we can do a lot better in making it easier for start-ups to be set up by delaying the layers of clearances. Our effort has been to ensure that the entire process is easier for entrepreneurs to get approval and to approach 

banks for loans. Both state and central governments have various schemes to boost start-ups.” 

Kumar further added, “We’re trying hard to improve the ‘ease of doing business’ in Tamil Nadu. The state government recently launched an online single window portal to make the process of starting an enterprise completely hassle-free.”  

He promised support from the state government for the winners of Carbon Zero Challenge (CZeroC) 2019 when the teams are ready to go ahead with start-ups. 

The uniqueness of CZeroC 2019 lies in its multi-stage support to the participants. It not only seeks innovative ideas but additionally supports the best performing teams to build working prototypes, by providing them ‘financial and mentor support’.