Army chief Gen Naravane to inaugurate Ahmedabad Design Week

Gandhinagar, Feb 21 (IANS) Chief of Army Staff, General M.M. Naravane, will inaugurate the third edition of Ahmedabad Design Week (ADW) on February 26, themed on 'Design and Innovation in Defence and Aerospace'.

Thought leaders, startups, and investors from the defence design fraternity will participate in the week-long event.

While sharing his thoughts about the event, General Naravane said, "Designing takes the experience of the past, breaks the mould of the present, and looks to create things anew for the future. Wishing ADW 3.0 all the success in taking forward design and development in defence and aerospace sectors."

One of the key highlights of ADW 3.0 will be the final tranche of India's biggest defence startup and innovation challenge -- the DRDO Defence Innovation Challenge -- which will be hosted by DRDO in association with Karnavati University.

The challenge is aimed at supporting startups, micro, small and medium entreprises (MSMEs) and innovators to come up with unique solutions and breakthrough technology interventions in the national defence and aerospace sectors.

"The challenge will encourage participants to create prototypes and enable them to commercialise products and solutions they have developed. The winning teams will be rewarded with prize money and angel funding worth up to Rs 50 crore," said Ritesh Hada, President, Karnavati University, which is hosting the ADW 3.0

"ADW 3.0's theme -- 'Design and Innovation in Defence and Aerospace' -- is very much in line with the government of India's mission of achieving 'Aatmanirbharta' in defence manufacturing in India. The ADW will create a platform for starting a dialogue on the role of design in defence and aerospace, use of emerging technologies and bring together design practitioners, defence sector veterans and innovators to deliberate upon this. This will also be an opportunity to encourage innovators to explore the defence sector," Hada added.

The ADW is a confluence of design thinkers, thought leaders and practitioners from across the globe and the sole theme of the event is to facilitate discussion, deliberation and identification of scope and the application of design in various domains, fields, and industries.

Some of the eminent speakers who would be part of the event include Lieutenant General K.J.S. Dhillon, former Director General of Defence Intelligence Agency; Sudhir Mishra, former Director General, CEO and MD, BrahMos Aerospace; G. Satheesh Reddy, Secretary, Department of Defence R&D, and Chairman, DRDO; Major General M. Indrabalan, Additional Director General, NCC, Bihar and Jharkhand; and Prahlad Kakkar, Founder, Genesis Film Production, among others.