Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
A constellation at `Shaastra'
|
"Shaastra", the technical fest which is to be held at IIT-Madras from October 4, has a fascinating line-up of lectures on a variety of subjects ranging from robotics to mathematics.
|
THE STARS of Indian engineering are going to descend on IIT Madras during "Shaastra" which is to take place from October 4 to 7! Over the years "Shaastra" has showcased speakers of great repute, this year though they seem to have surpassed even their own high expectations. The array of lectures is truly impressive!
"Shaastra", this year, will kick off with a lecture by Viji Santhanam, CEO of Sundaram Finance, the finance arm of one of India's biggest engineering firms. (At this point, the organisers wish to state that Venu Srinivasan of the TVS group is not inaugurating Shaastra, as mentioned in the round-up titled, "For some hi-tech fun" that appeared in Metroplus dated September 26.)
Robotics is making an entry into "Shaastra" in a big way; to add to the robotics workshop, there will be a lecture by Dr. Prakash Naidu on `Virtuality in Robotics'. Dr. Naidu is the head of the Robotics, Automation and Virtual Reality division at the prestigious Center for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR). He is also currently the project director of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS). The lecture, which will also involve a live demonstration of robots, especially flown in from CAIR, will be a treat to attend. The story of the Simputer will unfold at "Shaastra"! The Simputer is one of India's most acclaimed indigenously developed products, aimed at bringing down the cost of computers below Rs. 5000, while retaining it's functionality, in order to carry the IT revolution to the common man across barriers of literacy and language. Dr. Swami Manohar, CEO of PicoPeta (the firm that manufactures the Simputer), will be speaking about his experiences during the development of the Simputer.
Another lecture that is raising quite a storm on campus and outside is a lecture by Dilip Chhabria, the famous automobile designer. Dilip Chhabria is one of India's top- notch car designers, having rolled out more than 450 different cars over a span of eight years. At Shaastra, Chhabria will talk about his experiences in automobile design.
From cars to bio-Infomatics, this year the organisers seem to have done a good job of making sure that a range of engineering disciplines is represented at "Shaastra", and who could be better to speak on bio-infomatics than Dr. Vidyasagar, the blue-eyed boy of Indian engineering. Dr. Vidyasagar is arguably one of the most versatile engineers in the world at the moment. He is currently the executive vice-president of TCS.
One never thought that one would ever get to listen to a lecture on forensic pathology at a technical festival! But the organisers tell me that Dr. Anil Aggrawal's lecture on the subject is a big hit in colleges across the country. Rumours have it that the lecture will include as many as 200 slides as well as a video presentation!
There's a lecture for math aficionados too, a lecture by Dr. M.S. Raghunathan, hailed by none other than Nobel laureate Chandrashekhar as one "one of the best mathematical intellects". Given Dr. Raghunathan's zest for teaching, the lecture will be a treat for the uninitiated too.
But the biggest attractions this year are, as always, the video-conferences with the luminaries of engineering around the world. This year, there are two of them. The first is with Dr. Madhu Sudan, one of the top mathematicians in the world, and who was in the news recently for winning the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for Mathematics. Videoconferencing live from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he's a faculty member, Dr. Madhu Sudan's talk about error-correcting codes promises to be an enriching experience for all computer scientists and mathematics enthusiasts.
The other video-conference is with a popular science and mathematics author, Simon Singh, whose books on cryptography have been widely read and well-received. He's also written books on Fermat's last theorem, and is a very entertaining speaker. His lecture is much looked forward to.
The organisers have done a good job of stringing together a wide variety of lectures, the idea according to Sriram is to cater for all tastes, and given the increasingly converging nature of engineering it will be interesting to listen to people from different backgrounds giving us new perspectives of engineering.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
|
