Kusumgar Corporates, an Indian company engaged in the technical and specialised textiles sphere, in collaboration with Mumbai-based Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI), conducted the final round of 'Innotex' on April 17. Innotex, the first and only national competition of its kind, awards the best minds in technical textiles in the country.

Innotex invited students and researchers from all over the country to submit the best ideas for innovation in the arena of technical textiles. The jury represented the who's-who of technical textiles in India. It comprised Yogesh Kusumgar, chairman, Kusumgar Corporates; Dr. Anup Rakshit, executive director – ITTA; Dr. Vikas Thakare, scientist – DRDO; and Dr. Mrinal Talukdar.

The team from IIT Delhi, represented by Unsan Hame and Mukesh Baijya, won the competition for stellar work on "Strategic design of light-weight and cost-effective soft body armour". The first and second runners-up were Vinit Jain from NIT-Jalandhar for "Electrically heated graphene coated cotton needle punch heating pad for thermotherapy" and Raja Balasaraswathi from PSG Tech (Coimbatore) for "Mitigation of micro-fibre shedding from synthetic textiles".

The event, conducted online, attracted visitors from all over the country who participated actively over Q&A and advised candidates on how they could take their research further. The event plans to grow going forward and become the premier launchpad for the fledgling ideas in the industry and a forum to encourage students to undertake innovative work.