Opening day of Maker Mela a success!
Hundreds of visitors, students and innovation enthusiasts throng the two day festival

10 th Jan Mumbai - The opening day of the two day fest, Maker Mela organized by Somaiya Vidyavihar’s Riidl witnessed a an overwhelming turnout as visitors and innovation enthusiasts visited the stalls put up by makers from across the country.

A celebration of Arts, Crafts, Engineering, Science & the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset, Maker Mela is a platform for like-minded folks who bring to life a diverse range of raw, unique and unconventional ideas. It showcased innovations in Information technology, mechanics, Agriculture, food, arts and crafts, the premier event for grass roots innovations in India.

The senior most maker 75 year old Vaishali Chitale who showcased a beautiful display of flowers made from polythene bags said “I take inspiration by going to the garden and seeing these plants and flowers for real, and then I try and recreate using the same texture and colours, to get as close as possible to the real thing ! It’s a delight to be on this platform with other young makers”

9 year old Veer Bavishi the youngest maker created projects that can prevent road accidents said” I love participating in such competitions, I come up with a unique idea that can help people in anyway and work towards bringing a solution for the same.

Maker Mela this year witnessed several interesting projects on urban agriculture. One such interesting project was soil-less farming, by Sunit Chaudhary from Mumbai Malad who said “understanding that living in Mumbai there are space constraints but we all would like to have a kitchen garden of our own and contribute to nature at the same time. I have developed a solution for the same and was also inspired by one my trips that I made to Israel where is concept of soil-less farming is common. He added “in our time we didn’t have this platform, it is a very good initiative for individuals who belong to different domains and yet have a common platform to share their knowledge and their ideas though innovation.
The innovation event will also host panel discussions with esteemed speakers on ‘breaking barriers’ that focus on opportunities and challenges for women innovators of today.
 

How will a Maker benefit from Maker Mela?

International platform to display projects to entrepreneurs from different industries,

Makers will have a chance to pitch their ideas for INR 30 Lakhs seed funding through BIRAC Seed Fund,

Makers will have an opportunity to apply for NIDHI Prayas Grant support through riidl,

Shortlisted Makers will pitch their ideas during Pitching Session to get prizes worth INR 1 Lakh,

Discount in the membership fees for accessing the FABLAB and BIOLAB materials / machines,

Possible funding for building prototypes,

Six months of mentoring from Global leaders and Incubation Support,

24 * 7 access to space for developing their product,

Opportunity to sell the products live through paying a nominal fee during the event,

Amazon, IBM cloud credits worth $1000 per month for a specific time,

Getting connected to the awesome community of makers across 300+ fabrication labs across the globe. (https://www.fablabs.io/riidl - riidl is a fabrication laboratory affiliated with MIT's centre for Bits and Atoms, USA).

About Riidl (Research Innovation Incubation Design Laboratory):-

Research Innovation Incubation Design Lab (Riidl) was set up in the year 2010 by Somaiya Vidyavihar on its Mumbai campus. It was created to drive innovation & entrepreneurship and currently facilitates 39,000 students and 1500 faculty on the campus. In, 2014 Riidl was affiliated to the Centre for Bits and Atoms (MIT USA) as a Fablab (now a Fablab Node in India) and in 2016 with support from Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, Riidl became a Technology Business Incubator.

The Incubator operates through an autonomous not-for-profit entity model. Riidl comprises of Somaiya Vidyavihar faculty, alumni and partners with like-minded organisations to promote innovations in healthcare, machine learning & artificial intelligence, education. Riidl also helps in setting up labs & innovation centres at other places.  

The Incubator helps entrepreneurs to convert their ideas into becoming successful and profitable ventures by supporting them in business planning, mentoring, recruiting their top team, commercializing their technologies, developing their products, getting early engagement and customer validations from the market, getting early-stage seed funding, help in forging partnership at the national and global level, advice on intellectual property, training and development and many other things.