Rourkela: Student of National Institute of Technology (NIT), Rourkela Sujeevan Kumar Agir a Ph.D. scholar's Startup idea has been shortlisted among the top 20 startup ideas for 2018 from Telangana state for his project ''electronic tongue detection and quantification of arsenic in contaminated water''. Currently, he is doing his Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr.MadhusreeKundu in the department of Chemical Engineering. This event was organized by Startup India and State Innovation Cell at Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU), Hyderabad. He has been awarded a cash prize of 25thousand. In this matter, Sujeevan said, '' The present arsenic-detection techniques approved by the WHO are very expensive to set up and are not field-deployable. Our solution uses an electronic tongue experimental setup to run anodic stripping voltammetry on the water sample using the in-house developed "Hardware-Software Combo". The entire setup is portable and hence can be taken to the field for in situ analysis of the water samples. It could reduce the cost of analysis. The newly proposed startup would aim at manufacturing low-cost potentiostats that would cost almost 20% of the presently available commercial potentiostat. This will enable academic institutions to include "Electrochemistry" into their academic curriculum because of a significant reduction in the cost of establishment of the electrochemical workstation with the new solution, '' he added.

The Telangana State Innovation Cell launched its maiden campaign "Intintaa Innovator" (meaning an innovator in every home) to take innovation to every household in the State. As a part of this, in collaboration with Invest India, the Startup India Telangana Yatra was launched on September 15th with an objective to provide a platform for students and entrepreneurs in tier II and III cities to present their innovation and help them realize their startup dreams. The felicitation ceremony was attended by Mr. Naveen Mittal, Commissioner of Technical and Collegiate Education, Govt of Telangana, Prof Papi Reddy, Chairman and Prof Venkataramana, Vice Chairman of Telangana State Council for Higher Education, Prof A Venugopal Reddy, Vice Chancellor, JNTU and team from Invest India.