On the occasion of its Platinum Jubilee year, IIT Kharagpur today unveiled Impact RISE (Research, Innovation, Skilling, and Entrepreneurship), a transformative national blueprint that channels cutting-edge science and technology directly into solving India’s most urgent developmental challenges.
Speaking at the Constitutional Club of India, Prof. Suman Chakraborty, Director of IIT Kharagpur, declared:
“If not us, then who? If not now, then when?”
He emphasised that the era of measuring success only through research publications is over. Impact RISE marks IIT Kharagpur’s resolute shift towards delivering tangible, last-mile societal impact at scale.
“Our Platinum Jubilee pledge to the nation is clear: We will build solutions in our labs, pilot them on our campus, and scale sustainable technologies and impact models to every corner of India—and beyond,” Prof. Chakraborty affirmed.
Introduced by Shri Bhaskar Chatterjee, the architect of India’s CSR policy and former Director General of the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, the initiative rests on four integrated pillars:
Key Impact Missions Under Impact RISE
- Climate Resilience in the Sundarbans: Deploying AI-powered mangrove mapping and bio-inspired coastal defence systems, backed by 15 years of data revealing sea-level rise three times the global average.
- Human Capital Revolution: Rolling out IIT KGP’s AI Tutor and AI-enabled health diagnostics to empower millions of teachers, ASHA workers, and anganwadi staff.
- Women’s Health: Establishing a ‘National Screen India Network’ with ultra-low-cost devices for anaemia and oral cancer screening, targeting 50 million screenings by 2030.
- Water & Soil Security: Scaling low-cost laterite-based arsenic filters and smart soil scanners to deliver safe drinking water to 10 million people.
- Green Energy & Agriculture: Commercialising aqueous aluminium-ion batteries and autonomous agri-robots to cut farm losses and power rural micro-grids.
India’s First Institutional ‘CSR Umbrella’
In a pioneering move, IIT Kharagpur announced the Impact RISE CSR Umbrella at its Research Park—an integrated platform that redefines how corporate India engages with social impact.
Key features:
- Single-window access for corporates
- Ready-to-deploy technology kits
- Real-time IoT dashboards for transparency
- Outcome-linked funding models
- 70–80% reduction in administrative overheads
“Corporates will no longer fund scattered projects. They will become co-creators of national missions with verifiable, large-scale outcomes,” Prof. Chakraborty stated.
A National Call to Action
The Director extended an open invitation to government bodies, corporations, NGOs, alumni networks, and global agencies to partner in this movement. Positioning IIT Kharagpur as a “Mentor of Mentors,” he projected the creation of 1–2 lakh local jobs over the next decade through technology deployment and skilling programmes.
Impact RISE envisions an India where:
- No child drinks arsenic-contaminated water
- No woman is denied timely healthcare
- Every teacher and frontline worker is empowered by AI
With this launch, IIT Kharagpur has placed innovation firmly in the service of every village, every district, and every citizen of India.
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