Aspiration Bengal Foundation Conclave held, varsity industry linkages in Bengal discussed

Kolkata: From cost-effective polyhouse construction on concrete structure for implementing hybrid NFT-based vertical farming to individual goat identification using Iris Image (Pashu Aadhar), several universities and institutes from West Bengal, including MAKAUT, and Kalyani Govt Engineering College made focused presentations on indigenous technologies developed in the field of agriculture and farming at the first Aspiration Bengal Foundation (ABF) Conclave on Friday at NABARD Bhawan in Kolkata.

The illustrated panel, comprising mostly of alumni from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, had fund managers, potential investors and technology evaluators.

Dr Partha S Banerjee, the member of ABF Board of Trustees, said the one-year-old apolitical, non-partisan and independent organisation is looking for long-term solutions. He informed that the ABF has taken up two initiatives — to strengthen university industry linkages in West Bengal and promote attractiveness as an investment destination. "These are not projects but interventions, which we have conceived for the long run. We are looking at creating an ecosystem, which is vibrant. We have adopted a three-step approach — policy, platform, followed by execution at a large scale. We did an analysis and found that food processing is one of the strengths of Bengal. This has now culminated into a policy approach paper," he told Millennium Post.

Ashish Acharjee, alumni of the IIT Kharagpur 1983 batch, said: "We all carry a part of Bengal with us wherever we go. Our intention at ABF is to relook at some of the fundamental aspects of the multiple domains and ecosystems that drive Bengal. We want to put together our resources, network, experience, and synergies to create a powerful think tank that will have the capability of influencing and impacting the overall development of Bengal."

Meanwhile, Dr Sanku Bose, Group CEO, Techno India Group was one

of the key speakers at the session on promoting West Bengal as an investment destination. Angshuman Bhattacharya, founder, and CEO, SIBIA Analytics, was also present.