IIT Madras to identify new housing tech to cut construction costs

The institute is hosting a housing incubator, ‘Accelerator Affordable Sustainable Housing Accelerators’ (ASHA), which aims to support start-ups in scaling up their ideas.  

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras is hosting a housing incubator, ‘Accelerator Affordable Sustainable Housing Accelerators’ (ASHA), to identify and support new innovative housing technologies and bring down the construction costs in India. The project also aims to support start-ups in scaling up their ideas.  

ASHA is a Ministry of Housing and Urban Affair’s initiative to provide incubation and acceleration support to potential future technologies that are not yet market-ready (pre-prototype applicants) or to the technologies that are market-ready (post-prototype applicants). Officials said the incubator has already supported a couple of start-ups, including Tvasta, which constructed India’s first 3D-printed house and the first 3D-printed doffing unit used by COVID-19 frontline healthcare workers to safely remove PPEs. 

The key objectives of ‘ASHA’ incubator include identification of technologies, providing technical support to innovative ideas, business support and mentoring on the financial viability of innovative ideas and infrastructure support. 

Business success key focus of IIT Madras 

“The key parameter would be the impact of the technologies identified and how many housing units are constructed through the technologies supported by ASHA. Business success would be the key focus of IIT Madras. Success will be measured in terms of scaling up and output in terms of millions of housing units constructed through ASHA-supported technologies,” said Meher Prasad from the Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras. 

Another company supported by ASHA-IIT Madras is Slab Engineering that is engaged in 3D volumetric precast development. The company will work with IIT Madras to refine its designs and develop standards and specifications so that the adoption of its products can be enabled.  

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