Manipur Chief Minister N Biren has called upon youths of the state to concentrate on core issues of education and be a part of the growing IT changes instead of focusing on student body elections.
The chief minister was addressing the media after inspecting the projects of the “Destination Infinity-Manipur IT Startup Challenge” at the Innovation Hub Manipur of Information Technology (IT) Park in Imphal East.
The Startup Challenge was organised by the department of Information Technology in collaboration with CubeTen technologies and iHM.
Stating that youths of the state have immense talent but that efforts are lagging, the chief minister stressed the need of having a constructive and positive mindset among the youths.
Manipur cannot stay behind in the growing changes of IT, he said calling on the youths to “Stop making issues out of petty matters such as student body elections and instead focus on genuine issues.”
Biren maintained that it is indeed heart-breaking to witness not a single student from the state studying in the IIIT, Manipur and only a few cracked the NEET Examination.
Regarding the project of the Startup Challenge, the chief minister expressed his satisfaction on the works of the students and said, “I am quite impressed.”
Stating that the projects are very encouraging and innovative, he mooted taking up three of the projects (prototypes based on Internet of Things) as pilot projects and implementing it practically in some specific areas on trial basis.
The three projects are flood monitoring system and early warning system for rivers, smart control of home appliances and weighing machine with smart detection and sales reporting based with cloud reporting and management.
Biren highlighted that the Innovation Hub, Manipur IT Park was inaugurated in March 2021 as the first IT Innovation Hub in the Northeast with the objective to bring out new ideas and generate new products in line with the Atmanirbhar and Vocal for Local.
He maintained that the hub consists of three main laboratories (robotics, artificial intelligence and Internet of Things), as many as 1,200 students from various institutes have visited the hub for exposure to various emerging technologies and 26 students have completed internship as a part of the academic project.
Later, the chief minister, who was accompanied by chief secretary Rajesh Kumar, also inspected the ongoing construction works of the IT Special Economic Zone (SEZ) located adjacent to the existing IT Park and the New Secretariat located opposite the park.
