About Speaker:
Anil Pradhan (a.k.a. Ideas Man of India) is an Indian engineer, innovator, and revolutionary educationist. He is the founder of Navonmesh Prasar Foundation and School for Rural Innovation (IPSFRI), which was founded in 2015 to educate the less-privileged students of Odisha through an interdisciplinary curriculum. He is also known for designing innovative labs, teaching tools, indigenous rockets and projects which solves real-life problems.
After completing his engineering from UCE (University College of Engineering, Burla), Anil has quit three cushy jobs to follow his dreams. His mission is to create a thirst for innovation among students so that every student, regardless of background, becomes an achiever and, in the process, our country progresses. Engineering students go for jobs. However, Anil is exceptional. He founded a school in a rural pocket of Cuttack to boost the zest for creativity among students.
Prior to incorporating Navonmesh Prasar Foundation, Anil worked on projects with L&T, TATA and other during his undergraduate course in Engineering. He also the Chief Designer of V.S.L.V., Asia’s first Multipurpose Student Rocketry Mission and developed a satellite to monitor Hirakud Dam.
As an innovator, he felt engineering and innovation should not be restricted to a specific branch of engineering. He has designed various sustainable solutions such as a technology to maximise daylight in buildings, thereby reducing electricity consumption. This technological innovation led to him being listed among the top seven innovators in India by Larsen and Toubro (L&T). He was the lead design engineer for the VSSUT Student Satellite Team, which is India’s first multipurpose students’ rocket mission to monitor Hirakud dam. He was also the structural designer of the robot presented by the VSSUT Robotics team at the Asia Pacific ABU Robocon. Being an outstanding civil engineer, he was appointed an Affiliate Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.