The 6th Nina Saxena Excellence in Technology Award 2013, was presented jointly to NSS team of IIT Delhi represented by Siddharth Garg and to the Desalination Division of Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC), Mumbai, represented by Dr. P. K. Tewari, Dr. R. C. Bindal, D. Goswami, K. P. Bhattacharyya, Dr. A. K. Ghosh, S. Shivayyanamath, S. A. Tiwari, and Sangita Pal.
The path-breaking award encourages and promotes outstanding technical innovation with a focus on social development in India. A distinguished jury selected the awardees from the nominations on the basis of innovativeness, applicability, and most importantly the potential of the application for social development with specific reference to backward areas in India.
Speaking at the award ceremony on IIT Foundation Day, professor Amit Patra, dean, Alumni Affairs, IIT Kharagpur, said, “Dr. Nina Saxena was an extra-ordinary and brilliant alumna, an outstanding individual and an inspiring technologist produced by India. She not only demonstrated technical excellence but wanted to foster such excellence in R&D for the upliftment of socially underprivileged. This award has kept her vision and philosophy of life intact by aptly recognizing these leading innovations”.
The BARC team has developed a Hybrid Membrane Technology consisting of indigenously developed 5-10 micron microfiltration (MF) technology to remove uranium, bacteria, virus and other contaminants. It has resulted in 3 patents, has been industrialized by 4 companies and has been applied widely in socially underdeveloped areas with contaminated underground water.
The STREE initiative of IIT Delhi was launched to counter the growing crime and violence against women in India. The GPS based Safe Hands technology is to enable women to be able to transmit their location under distress to appropriate authorities without the need for an internet connection. This technology development is the need of the hour given an increasing number of such incidents and has been aptly recognized for its path breaking potential for application to societal development in India.
A first of its kind, the Nina Saxena Excellence in Technology Award was instituted by IIT Kharagpur in 2006 to commemorate the memory of Dr. Nina Saxena, a brilliant and outstanding alumna of IIT Kharagpur, B.Tech (Hons.), ECE 1992, who passed away tragically in 2005.
Nominations for the Award are open to all scientists of Indian origin. For more details visit http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/topfiles/nina.php.
The oldest of the seven IITs, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur has always led the way in research and diversification of education. The institute houses the maximum number of departments, schools and centers, some of which are unique to only IIT Kharagpur. For further details visit http://www.iitkgp.ac.in
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