The Ventilator Challenge, a ebook that tells the story of how a world-class ventilator was designed and constructed on the Indian Institute of Know-how (IIT) Kanpur through the coronavirus-triggered lockdown, was launched on Tuesday.
In response to IIT officers, the ebook is a gripping testomony to the sheer will and collaborative efforts of two sensible Indians, who got here collectively to construct a world-class ventilator in simply 90 days when the COVID-19 pandemic struck the nation.
The duo — Nikhil Kurele and Harshit Rathore — had based Nocca Robotics, an IIT Kanpur-incubated firm to fabricate autonomous waterless photo voltaic panel-cleaning robots. When the pandemic struck and sufferers have been dying as a result of a scarcity of ventilators, they designed, developed and manufactured a scalable world-class ventilator in simply three months.
“Nikhil Kurele and Harshit Rathore had by no means seen a ventilator, not to mention constructing one. However they didn’t let this cease them. With motion restricted because of the lockdown, the entry to healthcare infrastructure was additionally restricted. The worldwide economic system was crippling underneath the burden of the pandemic.
“The clock was ticking and a whole lot of lives have been at stake. Regardless of the chances, the duo met over day by day Zoom calls and exchanged WhatsApp messages to beat the lockdown restrictions and work on the ventilator. Their story is now captured within the thrilling pages of the ebook, ‘The Ventilator Challenge – How the IIT Kanpur Consortium Constructed a World-class Product throughout India’s Covid-19 Lockdown’ by authors Srikant Sastri and Amitabha Bandyopadhyay,” a senior IIT official mentioned.
Terming it an “unseen case research of an aatmanirbhar Bharat’ , Koppillil Radhakrishnan, former chairman of the ISRO, mentioned, “On the subject of well being safety, 80 per cent of medical gear is imported in India. IIT Kanpur has efficiently managed to develop a dependable, secure and good high quality indigenous product that helped save lives, equally trusted by each academicians and well being practitioners. The Ventilator Challenge just isn’t solely a case research for entrepreneurs or the startup ecosystem of India, but in addition for our premier instructional establishments and the vital function they must play within the aatmanirbhar motion while strengthening our economic system.”
The duo collaborated with and known as upon 20 business veterans with unmatched expertise from the domains of academia, policy-making, drugs, and manufacturing. Pushed by their extraordinary zeal and technical brilliance, the 2 younger enterprising and progressive minds labored with these business veterans to realize their aim of ventilator designed, developed and inbuilt India that’s akin to the perfect on the earth.
Abhay Karandikar, Director, IIT Kanpur, who penned the foreword for the ebook, mentioned, “It was a second of delight for us when, in the midst of a nationwide lockdown, the 2 younger innovators informed us that they wished to develop a fancy gear that’s in any other case imported. We knew this was a challenge that deserved all potential assist. The Ventilator Challenge is one such instance that places IIT Kanpur and India on the map of worldwide innovation in each manufacturing and enterprise.”
