The Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector has emerged as a vibrant sector of the Indian economy, contributing more than 29% to the GDP, 50% of the country’s total exports, and employing over 150 million people. However, MSMEs have undergone tremendous stress in recent times due to demonetization and the after-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Amrita Technology Enabling Centre (TEC) of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, supported by the Government of India’s Department of Science & Technology (DST), provides innovative and cost-effective solutions to the challenges faced by MSMEs. Amrita TEC works closely with various industry & trade associations and MSME clusters in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, such as plywood, rice mill, cashew, agricultural implements, foundries, and coir, as well as other sectors, such as medical devices, healthcare, and machinery, developing affordable technology solutions to address their primary concerns. Some of these solutions include:

• Smart Ply, an automation product for the plywood industry used for monitoring the quality of plywood during manufacturing
• Affordable patient mobility solutions such as hooded and foldable wheelchair
• Affordable healthcare devices such as glucometers and lab on a chip

Virtual Labs do not require any additional infrastructural setup for conducting experiments at user premises. The simulations-based experiments can be accessed remotely via the internet. AMRITA Vishwa Vidyapeetham is one of the 12 academic partners in the consortium along with IIT Delhi, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Bombay, etc.  AMRITA has developed virtual labs in biomedical and biotechnology, engineering, chemical sciences, and physical sciences. Over 7+ million users are registered on the platform as of 2022. 

Amrita has hosted a series of webinars for technology awareness titled, ‘AMRITA Tech Trends’ on the latest technology trends, such as IoT, 5G, Block Chain, AI, Big Data, and Industry 4.0, for young graduates, academicians, industry professionals, and entrepreneurs. These webinars empower them with cutting-edge knowledge of emerging technologies and also provide a valuable learning experience with valuable insights and practical knowledge to the participants.  It also provides insights into how these technologies can address the problems and needs of society. Over+ 100 webinars have been organized since 2020.  Over 5000+ participants have benefitted as a result of these webinars. These webinars also open opportunities for technology development for industry and R&D opportunities for research aspirants.