Student-led innovation has brought SRM Institute of Science and Technology, formerly known as SRM University, the “Reimagine Education” award by Quacquarelli Symonds, better known as QS, which is famous for its annual publication of international university rankings.
SRM’s Next Tech Lab won the “Silver Prize” at the “Reimagine Education” awards 2018 at a conference in the US organised by QS and Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania.
The Next Tech Lab was awarded in the student-led innovation for spearheading cross-disciplinary research in India, the university said in a statement on Tuesday.
Next Tech Lab was founded by Anshuman Pandey and Aditthya Ramakrishnan who spent a semester at MIT, Cambridge on a scholarship. Intrigued by the antidisciplinary research culture of the MIT Media Lab, they decided to start a lab at their own university.
“Our students have made us proud once again by being awarded with this prestigious award. SRM has always encouraged novelty and out-of-box thinking which has helped us maintain ourselves as front runners in technology,” said RP Sathyanarayanan, President, SRM University.
The lab’s policies are built to foster innovation and disruptive thinking.
“Researchers work on deep learning/Artificial Intelligence, computational biology, electrical systems, mixed reality, blockchains/decentralisation and Internet of Things,” Sathyanarayanan added.
Nominees for the awards included Massachusetts Institute of Technology, National University of Singapore, Imperial College London and other renowned universities.
The final nominees were selected from thousands of entries worldwide and were invited to take part in the showcase pitch conducted at the conference.
SRM University is the only Indian university to bag the award this year.
In a statement in November, QS Founder and CEO Nunzio Quacquarell said that the company wants to make the “Wharton QS Reimagine Education” awards the “Oscars” of higher education and that they were already on a path of achieving that.