Myshkin is known in the institute for his association with Hybrid Electric Wheel, an electric motor wheel, which, when attached to a bicycle, can increase the speed of the bicycle, making it similar to that of a motor bike, without consuming any energy. Between August 2009 and December 2009, Myshkin worked with a core team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop the product, which is in the process of being patented by MIT. Along with Myshkin, who has given his engineering inputs into the Hybrid Electric Bike, the core members of the team comprise two professors — Carlo Ratti and Assaf Bideman — from the School of Urban Architecture, and Christine Outram, an Australian student from Urban Studies and Planning.

“I actually tried building such a cycle during my NIT days. When I learnt there were people who were working on this, I started interacting with them over the Internet and finally they sponsored my visit to Boston and then Copenhagen,” he said.

The wheel was displayed at the Copenhagen Climate Change summit and has come to be known as the Copenhagen Wheel after the summit. The link to the Senseable City lab at MIT has 2009 Copenhagen Wheel as one of its products and Myshkin expects to build prototypes of this at IIM-C.

According to him, the ready product for the market would take another 12 months and would cost somewhere around Rs 10,000. Once attached to an ordinary bicycle, it can attain a speed of 25 km per hour. The battery of the electric motor can be charged from a plug point and also by paddling the bicycle.