Mind Over Matter: a tribute to young innovators

Jamshedpur: Tata Steel today announced the launch of Mind Over Matter, a talent hunt for India�s next student innovators.

The hunt witnessed participation of trailblazing students in teams of up to 3, with path-breaking ideas. Teams with the best entries were selected by Tata Steel to join them at Jamshedpur to execute their ideas to proof the concept in an industrial set-up. Through their summer project, the students were also mentored by the R&D team and manufacturing experts, & had access to state-of-the-art equipment and facilities.

A campaign was run across engineering colleges in India which was followed by the launch of a microsite hosted on http://www.valueabled.com, a youth portal powered by Tata Steel which featured information about the talent hunt. Social networks and direct e-mailers were also employed to spread the word.

To encourage further involvement and participation, a Google hangout was conducted with Dr Sumitesh Das, Chief Global Research Programs. According to Mr. Das, the initiative (Mind over Matter) was born out of a study which was done in-house by a team in Jamshedpur including him, Dr Sanjay Chandra (Chief R&D & Scientific Services) and Dr Pradip Kumar Banerjee, (Chief Researcher) and Dr Tapan Kumar Rout (Principal Scientist).

Every year, around 40-50 students from various engineering colleges throughout India work on challenging summer intern projects in the R&D & Scientific Services division and bring in a lot of freshness and diverse perspective to how we look at things.

Speaking on the occasion, Chief Guest Dr Sanjay Chandra, Chief R & D and Scientific Services at Tata Steel said, �Mind Over Matter will be a great platform for students to gain hands on experience at Tata Steel wherein they can showcase their innovative ideas. This collaboration of the best minds and a corporate will provide the much needed impetus to Innovation in the nation.� He also added, �The cognizance of Mind and Matter should be an exciting journey and we at Tata Steel feel proud and privileged to play host to the innovative minds of the future�.

The session started with a welcome speech by Dr Sanjay Chandra, Chief R&D and Scientific Services followed by an introduction by Dr Tapan Rout, Principal Scientist-New Technology & Strategy and Dr Sumitesh Das, Chief Global Research Programs. A total of six selected teams gave presentation on their innovative ideas. The session was concluded by insightful remarks by Dr P.K. Banerjee, Chief Researcher-Raw Materials.