Read Of The Week (Feb 28 to Mar 6)

A raging pandemic, a dearth of life-saving equipment, and 90 days to manufacture a world-class ventilator. On 24 March 2020, a nationwide lockdown was imposed in India in the wake of a formidable adversary, the Covid-19 pandemic. With the number of cases increasing exponentially, hospitals were faced with a dangerous shortage of life-saving equipment and personnel.

In response to the imminent crisis, Amitabha Bandyopadhyay and Srikant Sastri formed the IIT Kanpur Ventilator Consortium as a task force to assist a young startup, Nocca Robotics, in building affordable high-quality ventilators for India’s cash-strapped hospitals. Under the mentorship of reputed industry leaders, the task force and the Nocca team worked tirelessly against unprecedented odds — trammelled by a ban on imports and telecommuting through Zoom and WhatsApp in the face of stringent lockdown restrictions — to manufacture the Noccarc V310 in record time. This is the incredible story of its conception, creation and success, in the words of the task force co-leaders themselves.

Inspiring and riveting, The Ventilator Project also offers an unmatched blueprint for business in the post-Covid era through first-hand lessons gleaned during the task force’s phenomenal 90-day run. It proves that India, with its deep recesses of talent and ingenuity, has the potential to be a world leader in both business and social impact.