T-Works, one of the most ambitious initiatives of the Telangana government that is integral to the state’s aspirational innovation ecosystem, is all set for a formal launch Thursday. Taiwan-headquartered tech giant Foxconn’s chairman Young Liu will be present to inaugurate the world’s largest prototyping centre, IT Minister K T Rama Rao told reporters on the eve of the big event.
A fully state-owned not-for-profit organisation, T-Works is envisioned as a platform where an innovator can walk in to transform an idea into a working prototype that is reproducible at scale. The services are offered to hobbyists, artists, professionals, hardware startups, MSMEs, corporations, researchers, and even students in return for a fee.
Delighted to announce that T-Works, India's largest prototyping centre, will be unveiled on 2nd March 😊
T-Works will accelerate India's journey to become a leader in product innovation#TWorksHyderabad #BuildAtTWorks@jayesh_ranjan@KarampuriSujai @TWorksHyd pic.twitter.com/4FMnoKQAQf
— KTR (@KTRBRS) February 27, 2023
The state government has spent about Rs 115 crore on the building as well as machinery and by the end of the year, machinery worth another Rs 85 crore would be added. Of this, the industry has committed under CSR machinery worth around Rs 40 crore.
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According to Rama Rao, T-Works is part of the world’s largest innovation campus, which also includes the already up-and-running T-Hub startup incubator and upcoming Innovation in Multimedia, Animation, Gaming, and Entertainment (IMAGE) tower within an 18-acre campus at Raidurg. While the present phase-1 of T-Works is spread across 78,000 sqft, the upcoming phase-2 will take the overall space to 2.5 lakh sqft.
“Since 2019, when the T-Works phase-0 was soft-launched and operated out of a small space in Begumpet, the T-Works Foundation has assisted over 100 startups in creating more than 1,000 prototypes, besides developing 35 own products and owning 68 patents,” Sujai Karampuri, CEO of T-Works, told The Indian Express. Adding that machinery worth over Rs 1,000 crore would be available after phase-2 is completed, Karampuri said the largest prototyping centre in the country has currently no competitor in the country.
“The country has progressed a lot in terms of software development. The value comes when the software is matched with suitable hardware. That is where T-Works comes in. What would have otherwise taken months and years for an innovator to develop a scalable prototype can now be done in a matter of days,” he pointed out.
Stating that T-Works will bring back to Hyderabad a culture of manufacturing and design, Rama Rao said state-of-the-art equipment at T-Works will help the city become a hub of product innovation. “Necessity is the mother of invention… and there is no dearth of talent in the country. We feel design thinking should be inculcated in children at early stages. You are only limited by your imagination. T-Works aims to introduce a sense of design and the idea is to make this a one-stop-shop. We will advise, mentor, and walk you through the process,” he said.
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Jayesh Ranjan, principal secretary (IT E&C department), said that a rental model is being worked out for users. “It will be a pay-per-hour model and the rent would be nominal. On an average, one would require not more than a month and a half for developing a prototype. One would need to just book a slot for use of machinery,” he said. According to him, 50 to 60 individuals can work out of the building at any given point in time if all available machinery is put to use. T-Works, he said, will help with obtaining an intellectual property (IP) right for a technical invention besides assisting in developing a business plan and reaching out to the corporations for partnerships.
A year ago, #TWorks was introduced to Rajendra Prasad, a resourceful TV mechanic from Warangal who built an electric vehicle using second-hand parts. He is now learning new skills and building products at T- Works.@MinisterKTR @KTRTRS @jayesh_ranjan @KarampuriSujai https://t.co/m9x0koeAXn pic.twitter.com/yqgM0PTT3Y
— T-Works (@TWorksHyd) January 13, 2023
Gaddam Rajendraprasad, a TV mechanic from Warangal’s Konapuram village, was one of the early beneficiaries of T-Works. During the pandemic, news of a battery-run four-wheeler he built using second-hand spare parts, went viral on social media and Rajendraprasad was invited to work on a prototype at T-Works on the instructions of the IT minister. On Wednesday, the school dropout told The Indian Express that he developed a working prototype of an electric single-seater kart, which gives a battery range of 60 km, in less than two months and now he aims to scale up.
CEO Karampuri added that each iteration during the process of product development used to take months and T-Works saves this time by providing all necessary sophisticated equipment under one roof in an inviting and likeable place akin to a corporate office.
The workspace provides for PCB (printed circuit board) fabrication, laser cutting and engraving, an electronics lab, 3D printing, a ceramics studio, a metal shop, a wood shop, plastics and composites, etc. In future, capabilities such as unmanned systems, e-mobility development and testing, and textile labs would be added.
