Alumni Action Session: The Ventilator Project

Join us on Friday, 9th April at 7 PM IST for a conversation on The Ventilator Project: How the IIT Kanpur Consortium Built a World-class Product during India’s Covid-19 Lockdown. Sambit Dash, Assistant Professor at Melaka Manipal Medical College, will be in conversation with the authors of the book, Srikant Sastri and Amitabha Bandyopadhyay.

About the Book

On 24 March 2020, a nationwide lockdown was imposed in India in the wake of a formidable adversary, the Covid-19 pandemic. With the number of cases increasing exponentially, hospitals were faced with a dangerous shortage of life-saving equipment and personnel.

In response to the imminent crisis, Amitabha Bandyopadhyay and Srikant Sastri formed the IIT Kanpur Ventilator Consortium as a task force to assist a young startup, Nocca Robotics, in building affordable high-quality ventilators for India’s cash-strapped hospitals. Under the mentorship of reputed industry leaders, the task force and the Nocca team worked tirelessly against unprecedented odds – trammelled by a ban on imports and telecommuting through Zoom and Whatsapp in the face of stringent lockdown restrictions – to manufacture the Noccarc V310 in record time. This is the incredible story of its conception, creation and success, in the words of the task force co-leaders themselves.

Inspiring and riveting, The Ventilator Project also offers an unmatched blueprint for business in the post-Covid era through first-hand lessons gleaned during the task force’s phenomenal ninety-day run. It proves that India, with its deep recesses of talent and ingenuity, has the potential to be a world leader in both business and social impact.

Both Sambit Dash and Srikant Sastri are alumni of Takshashila’s public policy programmes.

Date and Time: Friday, April 9, 2021, at 7:00 PM IST

Register: https://bit.ly/BookLounge9

You can watch the recording over here: