States » SouthPosted at: Oct 8 2026 7:30PM


Union Min Pralhad Joshi launches the Phyto-Innovation Accelerator Program at IITMRP, visits Agnikul rocket facility

Chennai, Oct 8 (UNI) union Minister for Education Pralhad Joshi launched the Phyto-Innovation Accelerator Program, anchored by the Herbalife-IITM Centre of Excellence (CoE) on Plant Cell Fermentation Technology at IIT Madras Research Park (IITMRP) on Thursday.
The visit also provided an opportunity to showcase the breadth of IITMRP’s deep-tech innovation ecosystem and the frontier technologies emerging from its research, Centres of Excellence and startups.
During his visit, the Minister visited key research and technology facilities at IITMRP, including the IITM Pravartak Technologies Foundation, focused on sensors, networking, actuators and control system, the India Centre for Lab Grown Diamond and the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Development Centre (AMTDC). He was also given an overview of the Bodhan AI Centre of Excellence building sovereign, AI infrastructure for education with a focus on personalised and multilingual learning.
The Minister also interacted with deep-tech startups from the IIT Madras Research Park ecosystem, showcasing innovations across climate technology, sensing, industrial analytics, semiconductors and mobility.
The startups included Carbelim - Developing microalgae-based carbon capture and air purification technologies that transform urban infrastructure into climate-positive assets; Folium Sensing - Building fibre-optic distributed sensing systems for real-time monitoring across critical infrastructure and industrial environments; XYMA Analytics - Developing ultrasonic waveguide sensors and Industrial
IoT solutions for real-time measurement in high-temperature and challenging industrial environments; Mindgrove Technologies - Designing indigenous System-on-Chips (SoCs) and edge-computing platforms for applications spanning IoT, vision, analytics and
AI; Waterfly Technologies - Developing ground-effect aircraft designed to enable faster, cost-efficient and sustainable transportation
of cargo across long distances and Bodhan AI – Building sovereign, context-aware AI infrastructure for education, with a focus on personalised and multilingual learning.

The visit concluded with a tour of Agnikul’s Rocket-1 factory, offering a closer look at the spacetech startup’s 3D rocket development process and advanced launch vehicle capabilities.
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Tags: #Union Min Pralhad Joshi launches the Phyto-Innovation Accelerator Program at IITMRP# visits Agnikul rocket facility
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