Hyderabad: KL Deemed to be University, one of India’s leading private universities, launched its community service program ‘Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS)’ the innovative program was launched at its Hyderabad branch in partnership with Purdue University, one of the United States’ prestigious universities, following the signing of a MoU between the two reputed education hubs.
EPICS, a patented initiative of Purdue University EPICS, is a unique program in which teams of undergraduates are designing, building, and deploying real systems to provide engineering-based solutions for local community service and educational organizations. Aimed at fostering a connection with the local community including villages, KL Deemed-to-be University launched the program to identify the problems faced by the local community and subsequently provide the solutions developed by KL Engineering students, through a detailed survey with the community partners Swetcha, Redcross, and Ekalavya foundation.
As part of the EPICS initiative, a total of 650 KL University students from the B.Tech discipline were segregated into 85 teams to engage with the local community through in-person visits to nearby villages to identify the local communities’ problems across different domains. From agriculture, child education, women empowerment, and transport to sanitation, the thorough survey conducted by students brought different problems being faced by locals to the forefront. At the behest of the information collected by the survey, projects like ‘Smart Glasses’ for blind people, ‘Voice-controlled Home Automation’ for old and disabled people, and a Density-based Traffic Control System among others are now in process
