Story of ordinary boys who’re on a mission to impart training in applied sciences to school students
MC Jaikanth was a below-average student who used to fail in most subjects, but somehow managed to get decent marks in the Board exams and joined a private engineering college, hoping that he would do well in college.
In the third year of engineering, every student is expected to do a ‘Design and Fabrication’ project. “I always wished to be different, and came up with the concept of a Bladeless Wind Turbine as my first design and fabrication project,” says Jaikanth. A few days later, along with one of his friends, S Harish, he came across a presentation going on in their college seminar hall.
“We went inside and sat in the last row to pass the time in the air-conditioned hall. One of my department staff caught us sitting there. In the course of trying to convince him, I asked him whether we could present our project, hoping that he will not take it seriously and let us go. Ten minutes later the staff came up to me and permitted me to present on stage,” he adds.
Holding his breath, Jaikanth went on stage, completed the presentation in five minutes and ran away. After a week, he got to know that he had scored the highest points and sealed first position in the competition. “For the first time in my life, I won! It took about a week for this to sink in and get back to my normal self. Little did I know that this would be the beginning of a whole new chapter in my life,” adds Jaikanth.
The incident led Jaikanth to start testing himself, and he participated in all project presentations hosted by various colleges. While returning from a trip to Goa with his friends, some things began to haunt Jaikanth about his future. After returning to Chennai, he started to put his ideas on paper. “From there, I filed for patents for two of my projects. This changed how others looked at me. Those two patents actually changed my life,” reveals Jaikanth.
After filing the patents, Jaikanth started pondering -- why are other students restricting themselves and not thinking out of the box? While analysing the reason behind this, he realized the root cause was schools. Right from schools, most of us are taught to study, not learn and implement. Due to exams and other sort of pressures, we tend to forget what learning is and study just for the sake of exams, and grades. We miss the enjoyment and fun of learning.
This prompted Jaikanth to do something for the younger generation, and thought the best way would be by giving them hands on experience of what they learn theoretically. “I shared my concept with some friends from my department and they readily agreed to be a part of it,” says Jaikanth. Later, along with Harish, he launched Infinite Engineers on September 15th, (Engineers day) 2013.
Infinite Engineers imparts applied science knowledge at the root level through hands on experience which helps the students to develop their innovative and creative skills. It trains students in the field of Electrical & Electronics, Robotics, Mechanical, Aero-Modelling, Computer Science, and Bio-Tech.
Besides Jaikanth and Harish, S Jaivighnesh, A. Kishore Balaguru and N Amrish are the other Co-founders of Infinite Engineers. At present, many training centers teach robotics and aero modelling to school students. “But our idea is to integrate the school syllabus with our cutting edge practical training which will make their education complete. Education should not be restricted only by 2-D representation, i.e. text books, black board and by listening to a teacher; education should be experienced,” adds Jaikanth.
So far the company has visited around 70 to 80 schools in Chennai. Infinite Engineers started training in two schools. Soon it plans to launch its Applied Sciences Research Institute where students from any school can get a hands-on experience and can also bring their ideas to life with available materials that will make them innovative and creative.
Negative feedback makes your passion stronger
“I get more inspired by the negative comments that we receive. One of my college professors said ‘your venture will be very unstable. Go search for some IT job’. These words make us work harder than before to reach our destination. So some credit to our success will go to that professor. Some even questioned me, ‘What qualification do you have to teach?’ But they do not know the fact that only a back bencher knows how to teach without making students fall asleep,” says Jaikanth.