Drones are the future and in order to captalise on them ASAP, IG Drones signed an MoU with four Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) namely Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Behrampur and Hinjilicut, Hinjilicut being the home constituency of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. Entailing this MoU, the Ahmedabad-based start-up will establish the Drone Centre of Excellency at the ITIs to train students in all aspects of drones. The first MoU was signed on December 22 and the rest followed. This is the result of six months of talks between the start-up and ITIs, through the Directorate of Technical Education and Training, Odisha. Om Prakash Das and Bodhisattwa Sanghapriya are the founders of IG Drones, an initiative that was started in Odisha and has five offices across India now. They have been in the sector for three years and count Adani, Aditya Birla and the state governments of Gujarat, Assam and West Bengal among their clientele.
"With this MoU, our aim is to use our industry experience to transfer technical knowledge and know-how to students of the ITIs. We will train the students in drone-piloting, repairing and eventually, drone-making too," says Bodhisattwa. The start-up will be offered a 40,00 square feet space at ITI which will have patented drone simulators (because industrial drones are very expensive), assembly lines and two instructors from IG Drones. They will also help the students at ITI get good jobs and fast-forward their career. In fact, some of the students they have trained are working in big projects across the country already. This is the power of their six-month National Skill Development Corporation-approved course. After the agreed-upon five years come to an end, the start-up will hand over these centres to the ITIs.
"These centres go a long way in fulfilling the dream of Make in Odisha, especially when phase two of the initiative kicks in and drone-making lessons begin, and helps in furthering the Atmanirbhar Bharat mission as well," says the 24-year-old. And since there is clearly a demand, Bodhisattwa cites the example of the start-up IdeaForge and their `140 crore deal with the Indian army to establish this (what is this?), there will soon be a need for technicians, engineers and pilots as well. And when that happens, they will be ready for it.
Their students are already working on
- Bullet train project in Delhi
- Tapti river mapping in Surat
- Ganga river mapping in Bihar
- Manufacturing the longest bridge in Assam
For more on them check out igdrones.com
