CISCO Launches thingQbator IoT Lab at IGDTUW, Delhi

The thingQbator program is a part of Cisco’s CSR commitment, with the objective of building digital skills, creating local solutions to local problems and facilitating student entrepreneurship.

The ‘Cisco thingQbator’ program will run across two annual cohorts (50 student innovators per cohort) where selected students would have full access to the makerspaces to turn their ideas around IoT and other digital technologies into working prototypes.  CSR partner NASSCOM Foundation, together with implementation partners Project DEFY and Li2 technologies would help in setting up the makerspaces and operate the program for the first year along with the university. Cisco as the program sponsor would provide technical knowhow and mentorship along with access to its digital technologies. This makerspace is the first among the network of five makerspaces that Cisco is setting up across the country in various universities.

The Department of Telecommunications will play the role of mentor organization for the thingQbator makerspace being set up in InIndira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women.The collaboration between DoT and Cisco will help in providing direction to the students by helping them identify problems and come up with relevant solutions with the help of mentors.

Initiated in April 2015, the thingQbator initiative supports our philosophy of nurturing innovators to generate workable ideas around IoT. Engineers at the Bangalore campus were first provided with an IoT-equipped maker space and mentors for guidance. Till date, every cohort (that’s what we call a thingQbator batch) has received an outstanding response from the engineering community even though the program encourages engineers to work after their day jobs.

With a 67% Gen-Y workforce in Bangalore, thingQbator is the most happening place to visit after 6 PM.

In Bangalore, 240 participants, across four thingQbator cohorts, have delivered 35 extraordinary working demos on IoT innovations for agriculture, retail industry, hyper connected maker space, delta robot, smart bin sensors, autonomous drones and much more, making thingQbator a very successful internal initiative for innovation.