- Cisco thingQbator fostered innovation, nurtured entrepreneurship and helped create innovative technology solutions for social good
- The unique program engaged with 600 students from five universities across India by providing them with a sandbox-like environment to help them get the first-hand experience into Industry 4.0 technologies like IoT, AR/VR, Machine Learning
Bengaluru, 2nd July 2019: NASSCOM Foundation, today announced the successful completion of the first year of ‘Cisco thingQbator’ initiative at the felicitation ceremony held in Bengaluru. Over the last 12 months, over 600 student teams combined innovation and rapid prototyping with access to ‘Cisco thingQbator’ labs, world-class mentorship and industry connects through NASSCOM.
The Cisco thingQbator innovation spaces were set-up at Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Kerala (IIITMK) – Trivandrum, IIT-BHU-Varanasi, Amrita University-Coimbatore, Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women- Delhi and Trident Academy of Technology-Bhubaneswar. Over Six hundred students from across the five technical institutions got a first-hand experience on working with high-end tools like 3D printers, LoRa gateways, cloud infrastructure, AI optimized development kits like Jetson Nano to enable technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Apart from designing digital solutions to solve real-world business problems, the students were encouraged to conceive digital solutions to local community problems. Students with the best solutions from each institute were felicitated at the ceremony. Some of the innovations include –
- TrashCash, a waste management solution that incentivizes usage of bins
- DOST, an app for students dealing with the stresses of competitive exams
- Bend, a VR platform to gamify physiotherapy exercises
Speaking at the ceremony, V C Gopalratnam, Senior Vice President, IT, Cisco, said, “The thinkQbator initiative was launched on the premise that we are smarter when we work together. We created this programme to curate a community of technology enthusiasts, who will build digital solutions and solve some of the societal and business challenges we face. We are proud to partner with the NASSCOM Foundation to provide digital and entrepreneurial mentorship and bring the students’ ideas to fruition.”
Ashok Pamidi, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation, said, “The Cisco thingQbator program is a true embodiment of fostering change through technology innovation. The program works towards the increase of innovation quotient at college level while injecting entrepreneurial thinking and creating a social mindset. This is exactly what we at NASSCOM Foundation want to spearhead under the Innovation Spaces umbrella, where young minds are offered a platform to chase their dreams, try, fail and succeed while enabling a large scale social impact through technology.”
Congratulating the students, Ashok said, “Some of the social innovations created under the thingQbator program are game-changing and I congratulate all the students on achieving this feat. We are glad to find an amazing partner in Cisco in our quest of using technology for social good and hope that the relationship only grows from here.”
The program was implemented by Project Defy and Li2 Technologies. As implementation partners, Project Defy and Li2 managed the thingQbators’ on-ground engagement through regular events and workshops. Li2 also created a portal for self-paced learning.
Encouraged by the success, Cisco and NASSCOM Foundation will not just support the thingQbators for another year; they will also be setting up a sixth thingQbator at Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT), Allahabad.
About NASSCOM Foundation
As the social arm of NASSCOM, the foundation works with the technology industry in achieving its goals of social transformation and impact through technology. Since over a decade of its existence, the foundation has touched more than one million lives through its efforts towards providing digital literacy, skills for livelihood, supporting Persons with disabilities, fostering innovation, empowering Non-profits with technology and engaging in volunteerism.
For more information, visit www.nasscomfoundation.org
About thingQbator: The thingQbator is a global makerspace community standing for innovation parallel to formal work and education. A mind gym for creating entrepreneurs. It is an open community where every maker, goes through a different learning cycle and is supported by Workshops on emerging technologies and entrepreneurship.
About Cisco: Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that has been making the Internet work since 1984. Our people, products, and partners help society securely connect and seize tomorrow’s digital opportunity today. Discover more at newsroom.cisco.com and follow us on Twitter at @Cisco.
