The Ventilator Project

A raging pandemic, a dearth of life-saving equipment, and ninety days to manufacture a world-class ventilator. On 24 March 2020, a nationwide lockdown was imposed in India in the face 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 s