On the 10th of July, 2014, the Indian Institute of Chemical technology held a workshop titled AWAKEN 2014 for the city students of Hyderabad.  The workshop focused on educating the students about Bio Fuels and Vector Borne Disease Management.

Bio energy has become a priority area for research and development worldwide and nations are investing heavily to increase their energy security in view of the soaring global crude oil prices, and reduce their fossil-fuel carbon emissions and pollution with regard to climate change mitigation. The National Biofuels Policy of India approved on December 24, 2009 indicates the use of renewable energy resources as alternate fuels to supplement transportation fuels and proposed an indicative target of 20 percent blending of bio fuels by 2017.

The Biology Division of the IICT is recognized by Central Insecticide Board, Government of India for undertaking, pesticidal activities on public health important vectors and agricultural pests.  An important example of the IICT?s formidable work is the development of a special technology which enables scientists to identify the exact type of mosquito vector in any part of India and immediately develop control measures to prevent the spreading of such vectors which in turn leads to prevention of  vector-borne diseases like malaria, filaria, Japanese encephalitis, dengue fever, etc. In India, the classification and identification of vector mosquitoes is of paramount importance to enable prevention of vector borne diseases

IICT has also developed a database which is updated every 48 hours with data about the vector mosquito levels in any part of the Andhra Pradesh state. The database can be accessed by anyone in the world and provides real time information about vector disease levels and vector management. The ENVIS Centre on Bioinformatics and Vector Control has a local office at IICT. This Centre helps in giving solutions to vector management problems and educates rural people about vector disease management

The workshop AWAKEN was aimed at educating students about the use of such technology to protect themselves and the society from vectors. The speakers included Dr. Mrs. Lakshmi Narayan, Director of IICT and Dr. Y.S. Murthy, a senior scientist. The workshop was really an en lighting experience for the students.