One Week One Lab Campaign is a nationwide theme-based campaign to showcase the technological breakthroughs and innovations of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) laboratories across the country. During this campaign, each of CSIR’s 37 constituent laboratories will showcase their legacy, exclusive innovations and technological breakthroughs every successive week. Each CSIR laboratory is dedicated to a different exclusive area of work and this campaign offers an opportunity for each one of them to showcase the work being done by them so that others can avail of it and stakeholders can learn about it. CSIR-Structural Engineering Research Centre (CSIR-SERC), a constituent laboratory of CSIR is organizing this campaign during 5-9 June 2023, which will culminate with the Foundation Day celebrations of CSIR-SERC on 10 June 2023. Diverse programmes are being organized during this week at CSIR-SERC including Society Connect, Stakeholder Connect, Student Connect, Future Entrepreneurs Connect and Public Connect.
On the second day (6 June 2023) of this campaign, Stakeholder Connect event was organized at CSIR-SERC. The event was organized to connect with the potential stakeholders of CSIR-SERC to understand their requirements and to collaborate with them for technology development and commercialization. The event provided the platform for knowledge sharing, technical demonstrations and to identify the gaps between research outcomes and industry needs through focused discussions. Around 180 stakeholders from across the country representing public and private sector, Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) and start-ups participated in this event. The envisioned outcomes of this event are – to identify need based scientific solutions for region specific and industrial problems; collaborating with stakeholders for technology development and commercialization; identification of potential industries for co-development of next-gen technologies and products; networking with stake-holders for faster implementation of research outcomes and to motivate budding entrepreneurs and start-ups. The event started with an inaugural function at 9:30 AM at Vigyan Auditorium, CSIR-SERC, Chennai. Dr. U.K. Bhattacharya, Director (Projects), NTPC Limited, was the chief guest of the function. Dr. V. Govindaraj, Head-R&D, Larsen & Toubro, was the Guest of Honour.
The inaugural function started with Tamil Thai Vaazhthu and lightning of Kuthu Vilakku by the dignitaries. Dr. N. Anandavalli, Director, CSIR-SERC and Coordinating Director, CSIR Madras Complex gave the welcome address, in which she spoke briefly on the uniqueness of one week one lab campaign and mentioned that today’s event will showcase the technologies developed by CSIR-SERC to the industry. She emphasized on the importance of stakeholders in any field and said that communication among all stakeholders is very important in any structural engineering project. She pointed out that structural engineering plays a vital role in development and maintenance of critical infrastructure and structural engineers are involved in all stages of these projects right from designing of structures until maintenance. She spoke briefly on the notable contributions of CSIR-SERC since its inception, recent projects being carried out in CSIR-SERC that requires stakeholder participation and future collaboration opportunities between CSIR-SERC and stakeholders. She expressed her confidence that this stakeholder connect event will help us in refining our thoughts and that there will be more need-based collaborations in future.
A short video on CSIR-SERC, its accomplishments and important contributions to the society and nation in the past 58 years of its existence was shown to the participants. Dr. G.S. Palani, Chief Scientist, CSIR-SERC, briefed the participants on the Stakeholder Connect event and its objectives. He mentioned that the main purpose of this event is to connect with every stakeholder and to lay a future roadmap with all stakeholders. He said that around 180 participants are participating in this event and there is a balanced representation from private and public sector, MSMEs and start-ups.
Dr. Palani, introduced the Chief Guest, Dr. U.K. Bhattacharya, to the audience. Dr. Bhattacharya, in his address applauded CSIR and CSIR-SERC for this campaign and said that NTPC, India’s largest power generator is attending this event to connect with the innovation engine of India (i.e.) CSIR. He mentioned that NTPC already is a major stakeholder of CSIR-SERC with many collaborative projects being completed or undertaken at present. He said that CSIR-SERC is involved in inspection of structures of almost all NTPC plants and pointed out that with the timely intervention of CSIR-SERC, NTPC was able to solve critical issues within a short span of time. He also mentioned that customized training programmes are also organized by CSIR-SERC for the NTPC engineers to impart the huge knowledge and expertise available with CSIR-SERC and said that NTPC is looking for more future trainings as well. He expressed his appreciation for timely technical guidelines provided by CSIR-SERC to NTPC in the past and present and said that NTPC looks for long future association with CSIR-SERC. He said that many NTPC plants will be 35 years old with in a next few years and NTPC requires CSIR-SERC’s intervention in assessing the structures continuously in future. He also mentioned certain areas where in the stakeholders such as NTPC are looking for specific solutions such as usage of more fly ash (up to 70%), design of tall structures in seismic and high wind zones, development of low carbon producing / green building material, etc. and urged CSIR-SERC to work in this direction.
Dr. J. Prabhakar, Chief Scientist, CSIR-SERC introduced the Guest of Honour, Dr. V. Govindaraj to the audience. Dr. Govindaraj in his address mentioned that India is a fast-growing economy and that the major focus of the Govt. of India is on various infrastructure projects with many projects already in pipeline. He mentioned that there is a strong need to focus on the massive requirements of these ongoing/upcoming projects, forecasting the nature of requirements, leveraging all available technologies, identifying the grey areas and to prepare ourselves with feasible solutions. He stressed on the requirement of need-based optimal solutions in restricted timelines for the industry and suggested a theme-based R&D collaborations for bringing out holistic solutions. He also called upon the research organizations and regulatory bodies such as BMTPC and BIS to align more with the requirements of the industry.
The address by Dr. Govindaraj was followed with the exchanging of (i) Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) between CSIR-SERC and Construction Industry Development Council (CIDC), New Delhi, for carrying out Performance appraisal and certificate of competency for the construction chemical and waterproofing applicators; and (ii) Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between CSIR-SERC and Larsen & Toubro Limited (L&T), Mumbai, for industrial partnership to facilitate development and marketing of the technology/knowhow to be developed in the CSIR sponsored fast-track translational (FTT) project titled Precast textile reinforce concrete U-drains for storm water infrastructure (TRC U-drain)
The inaugural session of the Stakeholder Connect event was followed by the Panel discussion on Roadmap for future at 11 AM, wherein the representatives from private industries, MSMEs, Start-ups, PSUs and Entrepreneurs participated.
In the afternoon session, visit to exhibition stalls, visit to various laboratories of CSIR-SERC and one-one discussions with interested participants were organized.
The panel discussion was followed by the presentation on lab facilities and challenging projects by Dr. Palani and the presentation on technologies of CSIR-SERC by Dr. Smitha Gopinath, Senior Principal Scientist, CSIR-SERC. Both the presentations were followed by the feedback from the participants.
The Public Connect event, a part of CSIR-SERC’s one week one lab campaign includes a road show & exhibition with a team from CSIR-SERC travelling to 6 cities (Chennai, Tiruchirappalli, Madurai, Coimbatore, Salem, Vellore) across Tamil Nadu to share the contributions of CSIR-SERC with the public through interactions at public places and educational institutions. After flagging-off on 5 June 2023, the team is at National Institute of Technology (NIT), Tiruchirappalli, wherein more than 300 students participated in the event organized at NIT campus today.