What would a student who wants to improve his knowledge on any given subject without having to spend any money do? Speak to an expert in the field or slog for data online or in the libraries would be the answer majority would give. To make knowledge accessible to students, with ease and without having to spend any money, Dr Raju Aedla, along with his friends Hafeez Basha and Nikhil Prakash started an NGO Cafet-Innova Technical Society which publishes research papers on their webpage cafetinnova.org. The website is now benefiting students from all over the world.
The website which was started in 2008, after the trio who graduated in BTech from Shadan College of Engineering and Technology, started with about 28 research papers, today uploads around 760 papers yearly. The website majorly focuses on helping science and engineering students.
Raju’s inquisitive nature coupled with his desire to excel in everything was put to test when he along with with Hafeez and Nikhil undertook their research on chaser missile using artificial intelligence, automatic xerox machine and radar engineering. He was not satisfied with the resources available. Neither the data available online nor his faculty members could help him. “We referred books in Osmania University and Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University. We also collected data from other research papers. That is how we managed to complete our research.” But the lack avenues for getting information for researchers like them left an indelible mark on their minds and eventually paved way for the birth of Cafetinnova.org.
Their motto now is to encourage and aid the student community in research. The papers are published under four titles -- International Journal of Earth Sciences and Engineering, International Journal of Biological Sciences and Engineering, International Journal of Industrial Electronics, Control and Robotics, International Journal of Engineering and Science Students.
Cafetinnova.org has roped in 50,000 people to submit their research work, several of whom also help in reviewing. “The research contributors include faculty, researches scholars, undergraduate and post graduate students of various institutions,” the 29-year-old informs.
Apart from just publishing research papers online, they also conduct conferences, workshops and guest lectures for students. “We invite experts from various countries. Such seminars are attended by researchers who require guidance on their research work,” the doctor who completed his PhD from National Institute of Technology, Karnataka, informs.
The website is not restricted only to students. Even the faculty and other interested people can refer to them, albeit at the cost of Rs 1000 per paper. Since the webites is run on non-profit basis, when quizzed about what he does for survival, Raju says, “To help students with their research is my passion, but for my survival, I work as an associate professor at Malla Reddy Engineering College.” And while Hafeez Basha is pursuing PhD, Nikhil Prakash a techie with Delloite.”