Bhubaneswar: CSM Tech, a Bhubaneswar-headquartered IT firm, has teamed up with IIT-Madras to build the world’s fastest, autonomously-driven electric race car by 2025.
CSM Tech, an Indian IT company with active business footprint in Africa, Dubai, the US and Canada, is backing Raftar, a motorsports team run by around 40 students from different disciplines in IIT Madras with a shared passion for automotive engineering and motorsports.
CSM Tech, a strong follower of Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat, inked an MoU with IIT Madras to power the ambitious dream of developing a disruptive racecar powered by indigenous capabilities.
The MoU was signed by CSM Tech Founder & CEO Priyadarshi Nanu Pany, the company’s Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) Lagna Panda and Prof. Manu Santhanam, Dean of Industry Contribution & Sponsored Research at IIT-Madras.
Prof. Aravind Kumar Chandiran, Associate Professor of the Department of Chemical Engineering, and several members of the Raftar Team were present during the MoU signing. The Raftar team takes up the challenge of building a swift Formula Student racecar every year and aims to become the country’s most competent and cohesive team of engineers.
The synergy between a tech company like CSM and an academic and research institution of IIT Madras’ repute results in a string of benefits like shared expertise and resources, cost sharing and risk mitigation, accelerated research and development, standardisation and interoperability, policy advocacy, ecosystem development and knowledge exchange.
“This is the future. I am backing it. What the students and faculty of IIT-M can achieve with indigenously built electronics, embedded technologies, and cross-domain expertise is simply spectacular,” said Pany.
“The efforts by Raftar have the potential to be a game-changer in the passenger vehicle as well as heavy vehicles, telemetry, vehicle tracking, and much more. This team is a force to reckon with, and I urge them to keep working towards taking the nation forward and upward. The next big innovation of the automobile industry should originate in India,” Pany added.
Prof. Santhanam highlighted the role of industry partners in enabling and empowering the engineering ecosystem at IIT, especially Team Raftar.
Raftar team has won the Formula Bharat thrice, the topmost motorsports event in the country for educational institutions. It has also made a mark abroad at events like Formula Germany and established itself as a formidable force in the university-level combustion and EV categories.
CSM is supporting IIT-Madras under CSM Foundation, the company’s non-profit arm that conceptualises and backs unique CSR interventions.
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