PU’s DST-TEC to Host North India’s Largest Industry-Academia Exhibition in Chandigarh

Chandigarh, November 4, 2025: Panjab University initiative to connect MSMEs with IITs, national R&D institutions, and startups, strengthening real-time collaboration, technology licensing, and new policy dialogue for Punjab and Chandigarh

A four day industry-academia exhibition is being organized by the DST-Technology Enabling Centre, Panjab University, Chandigarh in partnership with an industry-event hosting entity (Fortune Exhibitors) in the Parade Ground, Sector 17, Chandigarh from November 14-17, 2025.

In this mega event, over 250 stalls of industries and academia will showcase state of art technologies and products. It is for the first time that an industry-academia exhibition of this magnitude is being organized in the northern region of India. The participating industries primarily belong to MSME category, which is in dire need of new and innovative commercial products developed by the academia. The academia is being represented by IIT-Ropar, IIT-Mandi, IIT- Jammu, IIT-Kanpur, IIT-Delhi, BITS-Pilani, CSIR-CSIO, CSIR-IMTECH, DST-INST, DBT-NABI, Panjab University, IISER-Mohali, NITTR, Delhi Technical University, Gujrat Technical University and many more. A footfall of over 10,000 industry professionals, nearly 1000 academia (scientists, research scholars, student), bureaucrats and policy makers are expected over the four-day period. The primary objective of this event is to facilitate the transfer of technologies from academia to industry.

Professor Manu Sharma, Coordinator, DST-TEC at PU, stated that keeping the needs of the industries in mind three dedicated sessions are being organized during this exhibition. First session is on ‘Awareness about ‘INDUSTRY4.0’. Here, the industry personnel will be exposed to the concept and applicability of digitalization for better and seamless coordination of the industry’s manufacturing units for higher output of the products. In the second session entitled, ‘R&D Related Pain Points of Industries’ the representatives from the industries will share their problems, on-line as well as off-line, for which solution is sought from the scientists (from academia).This unique session will also give an excellent opportunity to the scientists, students and research scholars to work on real-time challenges for their B.Tech, M.Tech, or Ph.D. projects. It is also hoped that some young startups around these industry challenges may also get launched. In the third session entitled, ‘Technology Transfer’, the innovators from academia will share their industry-ready technologies for tech-transfer to the industries. DST-TEC will assist both the partners in stitching tech-transfer to the satisfaction of both the parties. A Round Table discussion is also being planned for laying the foundation for ‘Industry- Academia Policy for the State of Punjab and UT Chandigarh’. Experts from industries, academia, bureaucrats and policymakers are being approached for the same.

Prof. Manu Sharma opined that the forthcoming exhibition will also provide a great platform for the academia to secure paid industrial consultancy projects. He also expects large participation from the youth of the region as it offers a unique opportunity to create new startups around technologies developed by IITs and universities across the nation. Students can negotiate with scientists in the Exhibition to license technologies from scientists for their startups. This exhibition would also be an excellent opportunity for rich people, businessmen, traders, industrialists and investors to invest in promising deep-tech startups against equity.