'Forge' Academy empanelled as the Knowledge Partner for 'Innovate TN Labs'

Coimbatore: A capacity building program for educators to seed and nurture innovators and entrepreneurs in the Government Engineering and Polytechnic colleges across Tamil Nadu has been given an impetus by a novel initiatve”Innovate TN Labs”.

The Directorate of Technical Education and the Government of Tamil Nadu recently announced the establishment of “Innovate TN Labs” in Govt. College of Engineering Salem, Trichy [Srirangam] and Tirunelveli in the first phase.

The initiative, which is implemented in partnership with TANSIM is being undertaken at a total outlay of Rs.13.07Cr and ‘Forge’ is empanelled as the Knowledge and Capabilities Partner by TANSIM and DoTE to operate.

Industrial innovation labs under the “Innovate TN” brand in multiple Government Engineering and Polytechnic Colleges in TN and will be operating these centers to stimulate local innovations and promote technical entrepreneurship as a five year turnkey project on a BOT [Build Operate Transfer] Model.

As per the dictum "If students have to become innovators and entrepreneurs, then educators have to be entrepreneurial", “The Innovate TN” Salem Lab commenced its first initiative on the August, 1 in Salem with a 5-day capacity building program "Innovation Mentor" for faculty members designed, developed and delivered by ‘Forge’.

The program offered substantial skills and competencies development in the areas of ideation, problem validation, customer discovery, prototyping tools and techniques, design thinking, apart from innovation, business idea, model generation, business idea pitch preparation and presentation.

At the valedictory function of the five day capacity building programme the participants were given "Innovation mentor” program completion certificates in the presence of Ms. Lakshmi Priya, IAS, Director of Technical Education, Government of Tamil Nadu.

Dr.S.Jayanthi, Additional Director of Technical Education, Chennai, Dr.R.Malayalamurthi, Principal, Government College of Engineering - Salem and Mr Christopher K Raj, SVP - COO, FORT & GM, Forge Academy took part.

About 31 educators were oriented with an entrepreneurial mindset and enabled the innovation process to solve a real world problem sourced from the industry partners on day 2.

This immersive industry-allied initiative shall seed and nurture innovations and tech enterprises of the future from these campuses. They learnt through live case studies, group activities, individual exercises, and through guidance from mentors.

The trained faculty shall deliver the Innovation Practicum program, a curriculum-integrated (engineering and polytechnic) and implementation of Trans-disciplinary Innovation Projects by Multidisciplinary Teams in respective campuses to seed a pipeline of future ready talent in the State of Tamil Nadu.