PINAKI MAJUMDAR
Jamshedpur, Nov 26: Tata Steet on Saturday launched the fourth edition of MaterialNEXT, the company’s flagship open innovation event in the emerging materials domain. The focal theme for this edition is ‘Materials to Wonder’ with an objective to crowdsource ideas around emerging materials and their unique applications.
Four major materials/technology subject areas have been introduced with the launch of MaterialNEXT 4.0 – Applied Nanomaterials, Novel Composites, Emerging Construction Materials, and Energy Materials.
On the launch, Debashish Bhattacharjee, Vice President, Technology & New Materials Business at Tata Steel, said, “At Tata Steel, we continue to develop innovative solutions and breakthrough technologies across the steel value chain, by leveraging our research and development strengths and collaborating with a broader community of scientists, researchers, start-ups and industrial organisations. Our MaterialNEXT platform incubates young minds in the advanced materials space to promote technology thought leadership. This has the potential to shape-up breakthrough products and processes in the emerging areas of advanced materials.”
Tata Steel Advanced Materials Research Center (TSAMRC) oversees the Company’s ‘Technology Entrepreneurial’ initiative in the new and emerging materials domain and has been organising this initiative since 2019.
Starting at the IIT Madras campus, the programme has seen significant expansion to the pan-India level and outreach to leading academic institutes and research centres over the years. MaterialNEXT has played a crucial role in the technology portfolio expansion of TSAMRC.
MaterialNEXT 4.0 will span five months in three phases: Selection (Idea Selection), Performance (Idea Development) and Finale (Idea Evaluation).
Post-registration by teams, the Selection Phase is a two-stage process of an online screening followed by discussion-cum-evaluation stage, conducted by subject matter experts.
The selected entries will progress to the Performance Phase. The performance Phase ends with an evaluation (Pre-Finale) round. The selected entries from this phase qualify for the Finale Phase and will be called for the Grand Finale to decide the winner and runner-up.
The grand finale will be held on Technology Day on May 11, next year.
