San-kranti, the National Student Urban Challenge 2011 announces a panel of Mentors to foster Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Implementation
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November 14, 2011, New Delhi/Mumbai/Bangalore, India: The Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) announced a panel of 27 leading experts including mentors from CIIE – IIMA (www.mentoredge.com) to mentor 21 semi-finalist teams as part of its san-kranti national Student Urban Challenge. Five finalist teams will present their proposals to a grand jury before 600-plus participants of India’s largest urban conference at the Infosys training campus in Mysore on 18th November 2011.
Mentors include Shirish Patel, one of India’s leading urbanists and author of the development plan for Navi Mumbai, Vasudev Avadhani from IIM-B, V. Gayathri of Labournet, Shreyas Bakshi, from Erehwon Innovation Consulting, Meenu Handa, Director for Corporate Communication at Microsoft India and the Xerxes Desai, who built Titan into one of India’s global brands.
Since the launch of san-kranti (www.transformurbanindia.com) in July 2011 the initiative has received an overwhelming response. Over 170 teams from 55 leading Universities and higher education institutions registered from over 20 cities. This includes teams from the IITs, IIMs, NITs, Universities of Delhi and Hyderabad, SPA, CEPT, TISS, TERI University and BHU.
The 21 semi-finalist teams are working on solutions to diverse challenges in their cities from urban planning, mobility, livelihoods, public policy, water and sanitation, solid waste management to culture.
The san-kranti challenge is supported by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to run. The three best teams will be awarded an implementation grant of Rs. 3 lakh and IIHS technical support to take forward their proposals. These grants are being funded by Pirojsha Godrej Foundation and Marico Innovation Foundation.
“It is inspiring to see the student response to the national urban challenge from higher education institutions from across the country. They share a strong commitment to making a change in our cities. Teams are hugely enthusiastic and keen on seeing their proposals implemented. Bringing some of the country’s top urbanists and enterprise leaders together as mentors provides strong support to operationalise their ideas. They are as enthused as the participants with e-mail and phone calls flying around till late in the night. san-kranti will bring together these teams with the country’s leading practitioners, academics and policymakers in Mysore at IUC 2011. We hope that will enable a new generation of changemakers and entrepreneurs to pick up the baton and get on with the job of transforming urban India” said Aromar Revi, Director of IIHS.
The san-kranti student challenge is a component of the India Urban Conference 2011, the largest urban conference in India. The people working behind the scenes to make this happen are The Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy and Yale University in collaboration with the Ministry of Urban Development, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation of the Government of India.
ABOUT san-kranti
An ongoing platform to engage young people with urbanisation it challenges students to take a hard look at some of our most pressing urban problems and explore their multi-dimensional impact on our economy, society, environment and politics. The challenge is open to teams of 3 to 5 participants from multiple disciplines who will suggest viable solutions to problems in their city or town. More information about san-kranti is available at www.transformurbanindia.com
ABOUT INDIAN INSTITUTE FOR HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
The Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) is a national education institution committed to the equitable, sustainable and efficient transformation of Indian settlements. IIHS is India’s first prospective independently funded and managed National University for Innovation that focuses on its ongoing urban and development transformation. It is a first-of-its-kind, practice and innovation-oriented knowledge institution that seeks to bridge the conventional excellence, scale and inclusion divides. More information about IIHS is available on www.iihs.co.in
Media Contact
Salma Khan / Milan Mathias
Gutenberg Communications
salma@gutenbergpr.com / milan@gutenbergpr.com
IIHS Contact
Raghavendra Raju
rraju@iihs.ac.in
Mobile No: +91 97402 20875
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Author Resource:-
IIHS Contact
Raghavendra Raju
rraju@iihs.ac.in
Mobile No: +91 97402 20875
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By :
Gutenberg Communications
Submitted
2011-11-15 04:20:07 |
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