Indian Nobel Peace Laureate and the internationally acclaimed child rights activist Shri Kailash Satyarthi will address the students and faculty of SRM University-AP on August 22, 2022. His talk is scheduled on the topic “Compassionate Youth Leadership: Key to Building a Better Future”. Shri Satyarthi will confer with the students on the necessity of fostering compassion and empathy among the youth of the nation to lead the country towards a more humane future.

Shri Kailash Satyarthi, who was the co-recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize with Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, has been driving global wide anti-child-slavery campaigns and advocating the universal right to children’s education for over four decades. He has rescued more than 110,000 children from the plight of child labour, child trafficking, and other forms of exploitation through his organisation Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or Save the Childhood Movement.

In 2016, he launched the 100 million campaign, a movement to inspire and mobilise young people to campaign for the rights of the world’s most excluded children. The movement intends to end violence against children, eradicate child labour, and ensure education, breaking the cycles of illiteracy, poverty, and violence for good. For more details, visit 100million.org. He is also the founder of multiple social activist organisations, including Global March Against Child Labour, Global Campaign for Education, Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, Laureates and Leaders for Children, etc.

Honourable Vice-Chancellor Prof VS Rao, Registrar Dr R Premkumar, and other university dignitaries will also take part in the programme. Prof VS Rao will deliver the welcome address and introduce the chief guest. Following the address of the chief guest, an interactive segment with the faculty and students has also been scheduled.

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Innovation is crucial to the development and deployment of technologies. Patents stimulate technological innovations by providing an incentive for research and development. They disperse technical information and facilitate technology transfer. Hatchlab Research Centre unveils the concept of Patent Maker to give breath to the projects and patents that deserves a high commercial application. Professor G S Vinod Kumar, an expert, mentor, and multidimensional professional, will guide the workshop by sharing his valuable wisdom in the domain of innovation and leadership.

Date: August 18, 2022

Time: 7.00 pm to 7.45 pm

The life cycle of technologies runs through invention, research, development, dissemination, market development, and commercial diffusion. The various processes happening at each of these stages provide numerous opportunities to employ instruments that promote innovation.

However, the journey of a perfect project or patent is quite challenging and time-taking. So much hard work goes down in creating one good project or filing one patent. But the irony is that roughly only around 3% of the patents are being commercialised. Their impact is not reaching where they are supposed to, as they are unable to deliver greater benefit to society at application levels. Promising projects and patents are literally national assets. A little alignment of the priced asset with the industry can turn most of the brilliant work into something of high commercial value, which could be a boon for the entire economy.

About the Speaker

Professor G S Vinod Kumar did his PhD from IIT Kharagpur and post-doctoral research at Helmholtz centre Berlin for materials and energy, Germany. He has vast research experience in metallurgy and materials engineering about 16 years, in the field of non-ferrous alloys and precious metals. He currently handles sponsored research projects from industries such as Titan Company Ltd, (Tanishq), WHP-Sons, Maharashtra, Jewel Craft Ltd, and Chennai in gold and Silver alloys for jewellery manufacturing. He also handles consultancy projects from INDSAT corporation, Chennai in die-cast aluminium alloys. He has 40 research publications, 13 patents and 2 technology transfers to industry (Titan). Some of his technologies are currently in the market as products. He has recently filed a patent jointly with Titan Company Ltd, which is the first time in the history of TATA.

Join the session to learn the entire process, challenges, and scopes of patents.

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The legacy of India’s craft culture always occupies a special spot owing to its beauty, dignity, form, style, and aesthetics. India is traditionally known for its rural village and wooden cottage Industries. Among them, Andhra Pradesh has glorious rural artisan handmade traditions in toys. The office of International Relations and Higher Studies conducted a workshop on August 16, 2022, to promote and celebrate the dignity of Kondapalli Toys. These toys are one of the geographical indication handicrafts from Andhra Pradesh.

The workshop belongs to the series of sessions organised as part of Aadigyan, the social leadership programme. Mr Durga Prasad, a traditional Kondapalli artisan of Andhra Pradesh, handled the workshop for two hours. He demonstrated the process of crafting the toys and explained their history. Various tools used for wood carving, division of labor among male and female artisans, social implications of the toys, etc., were discussed in this interactive session. Volunteered students also learned some wood carving basics from the artisan himself.

The rural industry holds a share of ten percent in the decentralised sector. The handicrafts industry is one of the major sectors that offer employment opportunities to a larger number of individuals. Yet the 400 years old industry is not getting the attention it deserves due to a lack of promotion and awareness. Sandeep Samala, the programme coordinator, highlighted the need for spreading the heritage of Kondapalli toys among the younger generation. He also explained how the industry could be approached from a startup’s perspective to amplify the toys’ promotion.