February 2022 – The KGP Chronicle

Distinguished Service Awards 2021

IIT Kharagpur has announced the recipients of the Distinguished Service Awards for 2021.

The Distinguished Service Awards (DSA) are conferred to recognize its alumni for providing outstanding service to the institute.

This year’s awards will be conferred to Mr. Amitabh Agarwal (1967/B.Tech/EE/NH), Mr. Srikanth C (2009/BLIPR/IP/JCB) and Mr. Sunil Kapoor (1986/BTech/MF/PH) in the 18th Annual Alumni Meet to be held from March 10th-13th, 2022.

Mr. Amitabh Agarwal

Mr. Amitabh Agarwal has provided impactful services to the Alumni chapters, the IITKGP foundations and has effectively contributed to numerous initiatives spanning over 20 years.

Some of his contributions include,

Donating to the Delhi Chapter for their programs
Establishing the Amitabh Agarwal Chair-Professorship at the Electrical Engineering Department
Donating to neighborhood schools in of IIT KGP
Supporting institute incubated startups
Support to Super 30 program of Prof. Anand Kumar

Mr. Agarwal has an M.Sc from the University of Manitoba, Canada, and an MBA from the University of Delhi. He is currently the Director of the Mohan Energy Corporation Pvt. Ltd.

Mr. Srikanth C

Mr. Srikant C joined the IIT Kharagpur Alumni Association Chennai Chapter in 2010 and was part of its organizing team of the IIT Kharagpur Alumni Association Chennai Chapter during the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of IIT Kharagpur and the PAN IIT Outreach 2012 program in Chennai.

He was also part of the organizing team of the ‘Mindskool competition’ for a school competition conducted by the IIT Kharagpur Alumni Association Chennai Chapter.

He volunteered for the IIT Kharagpur Alumni Foundation in their initiatives like reviewing group insurance schemes, assessing individual donations of assets to Kharagpur, and many more.

Currently, he is an advocate and an IPR consultant.

Mr. Sunil Kapoor

Mr. Sunil Kapoor played a key leadership role in the renovation and refurbishing of the Patel Hall Mess, Dining Hall, TV Room, and Common Room along with the nearly completed Central air-conditioning of facilities in the Hall. He achieved this by using alumni funds crowdsourced from hundreds of Patelians from all over the world.

He executed the Mess and Dining Room Renovation in a targeted period of 6 months and opened the renovated facilities by the start of the new session in July 2016. He generously helped the mess workers of the Hall during the COVID lockdown

Mr. Kapoor is presently the Director, IFA Steels Pvt. Ltd. Founder & Proprietor, Kapoor Wire Industries, and Partner, S. R. Kapoor & Sons.

The Distinguished Alumnus Awards seek to engage and inspire KGP’s 70,000 strong alumni in contributing to the infrastructural development of the institute and encourage them to come aboard in IITKGP’s journey to become onboard them onto IITs journey into becoming a popular destination for international students, teachers, and researchers.

Content Writer:- Arkaprabha Pal, Office of Alumni Affairs & Branding

Email: pal18arkaprabha@gmail.com

The Paperless Professor

The e-Library of India developed by IIT Kharagpur wins at World Summit Award 2021

As we know a book is a gift that you can open again and again and this thought has inspired the ingenious innovators of IIT Kharagpur to develop the National Digital Library of India (NDLI). NDLI, developed by Dr. Partha Pratim Das, Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering and his team of researchers from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and sponsored by the Ministry of Education, India- has won the prestigious World Summit Award (WSA) 2021 for Learning and Education.

The National Digital Library of India is a public digital library that offers free and open access to over 55 million educational resources. Since its inception in 2015, the NDLI’s mission has been to create a national knowledge of asset. A single window knowledge repository available in 10 Indian languages that transcends the barriers of geography and language to deliver quality education and create effective learning environment for student across all social economic strata. Till date NDLI has more than 50 million contents delivered through multiple platforms and has more than 5 million viewers across the country. NDLI has digitally united the world’s largest democracy by launching two pioneer new services, the ‘Study at Home’ segment for schools and universities and a ‘National Covid-19 Research Repository’ for students, researchers and entrepreneurs followed by a CBSE Exam Preparatory for schools, colleges and entrance exams. The platform also ran a nationwide resourcing of educational materials along with social media outreach programmes.

The 65 million strong repository is overhauled with an EdTech Service Platform with the covid transformation journey which has been remarkable, moving forward from repository to being service oriented. The daily page views grew 10 times i.e 2,00,000 with users ranging from school students to educators from around the world starting a hastag ‘Fight Back Covid-19’ (#FightBackCovid19). Public and open access to quality content has always been the core value of this open source content platform along with its policies, serving the front lines as knowledge partners. An overhaul of 75 million plus metadata mammoth created into a trial service based AI platform in a period of 90 days, is the transformation to further scale and have a social relevance.

The Library comprises of all types of resources such as Books, Audio Books/Lectures, Video lectures, Lecture Presentations/Notes, Simulations, Question Papers, Solutions, etc. Educational materials are available from Primary to Postgraduate levels for all subject areas like Technology, Social Science, Literature, Law, Medical etc. For all contents, User Interface is available in widely used Indian languages. Huge volume of Educational materials are authored by large number of authors and integrates contents from Institutional Digital Repositories of large number of Indian Educational and Research institutions.

NDLI is powered by a unique process for digitally acquiring and curating the metadata of educational contents, running a vigorous online advocacy programme to mobilize learners and influencers across India. This e-learning mechanism aims to educate, enable and empower so that not just a privileged view but the whole India can learn, share and grow despite the crisis.

The World Summit Award 2021 winners have shown a commitment to solve social challenges using the digital solutions. 40 winners were selected among 380 projects with solutions from 182 countries. In UNSDG Learning and Education category, NDLI was the only winner from Asia while others were from Austria, Hungary, Lithuania and Malawi. Founded in 2003 by Austria within the framework of the UN World Summit on Information Society, it is a global initiative recognizing digital applications and content that contributes to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

https://wsa-global.org/winner/national-digital-library-of-india/

Content Writer:- Poulami Mondal, Digital & Creative Media Executive (Creative Writer)

Email: poulami.mondal@iitkgp.ac.in, media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282007

The James Webb Space Telescope launch and IITKGP

On 25th December 2021, thousands around the world enthusiastically watched the Ariane 5 heavy-lift space launch vehicle carry the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) to its orbit.

However, not many are aware that this launch from the European Space Agency (ESA) spaceport in French Guiana had a unique KGP connection.

Alumnus Dr. Ranbir Sinha (B.Tech/Aero/1981) worked on the structural design and simulation of the Ariane 5 nose-cone and Payload Fairing (PLF), which protected the Webb during the launch.

Launching The Webb

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the next great space science observatory that will take up the baton from the Hubble Space Telescope. It has been designed to seek answers to the unknown of the Universe and make breakthroughs in astronomy. Webb, an international partnership between the European Space Agency (ESA), The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), has been tasked with unraveling our origins. It will look into the formation of stars, planets, and galaxies in the early Universe.

The 17 m tall and 5.4 m diameter PLF on the Ariane 5 was made of light-weight Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) and Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic (GFRP) Sandwich panels which were assembled with aluminum alloy rings and a magnesium alloy ‘Vertical Separation System’. Dr. Sinha’s responsibility was to ensure its separation without hitting the payload or the launcher.

Life after KGP

While talking to the KGP Chronicle, Dr. Sinha reminisces about his KGP days. He said that the practical problem-solving skills he learned as a student empowered him the most in his career. He recalled his NCC Airwing days at IIT KGP and credited it with not only inculcating discipline, self-confidence, teamwork, leadership, and perseverance in him but also in shaping his personality.

After graduating from IIT Kharagpur, Dr. Ranbir Sinha did his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, USA.

For the past three decades, Dr. Sinha has been involved in the design and analysis of numerous space structures including Automated Transfer Vehicle for the International Space Station, the Meteosat Second Generation, Atlas V Payload Fairing, the X-Ray Multi-Mirror Telescope, the Rosetta Spacecraft High Gain Antenna mechanism, and many more.

Dr. Sinha currently focuses on creating opportunities in large-scale practical engineering education. ACSESS is one such platform through which he and his team are helping engineering and science students in India improve their professional communication skills in English.

He also heads the Sinha Research Institute in Switzerland.

Expressing his views on the Indian space industry, Dr. Sinha says that he sees promise in the growth trajectory of the future of the aerospace industry in India. Beyond ISRO, he believes that private aerospace companies have the potential to become world leaders in specific niche areas in both the commercial and military aerospace sectors.

In his message to young students in India, Dr. Sinha advises the learning of a wide range of subjects and developing multiple skills. He highlighted that learning itself is not enough and the learning must be converted into finding applications and creating useful solutions and products. He further advised the mastering of communication, social, and leadership skills. Finally, he asked the young generation to never forget our great culture and heritage.

Content Writer:- Arkaprabha Pal, Office of Alumni Affairs & Branding

Email: pal18arkaprabha@gmail.com

Pic Courtesy- European Space Agency

Dr. Ranbir Sinha

In memory of Prof. Sujoy Ghose

On 18th January 2022, the IIT Kharagpur community lost one of its well-known, respected, senior members.

Prof. Sujoy Ghose was an emeritus professor at the Computer Science and Engineering Department. He joined the institute in 1979 and dedicatedly served through his teaching and research contributions until the very last day. Prof. Ghose was a specialist in networks, algorithms, artificial intelligence, information systems, and peer-to-peer computing. He had guided many research scholars and received academic praise from colleagues and experts from around the globe.

Prof. Ghose grew up on the campus. He graduated with a B.Tech in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering in 1976 from the institute. He pursued an MS from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, soon after. He completed his self-guided Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1989. He was a pioneer in setting up the Computer Science and Engineering department at IIT Kharagpur in the early 1980s.

Fondly remembered as Sujoy da, he was loved and respected amongst his colleagues and friends.

To cherish his legacy, the campus community organized a virtual memorial meeting in his honor on 6th February 2022. Coordinated by Prof. Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, the virtual memorial gathering was attended by many current and former students, colleagues, friends, and well-wishers who shared their memories and stories of personal interactions with Prof. Ghose. Director, Prof. Virendra Kumar Tewari, who is a close family friend initiated the meeting by expressing his condolences for the Ghose family. He recollected some memories of their youthful days on the campus and his later day contributions to the institute.

In the gathering, some recalled his academic and administrative contributions, others shared stories of his younger days as a brilliant student of the Hijli High School. Some of his former students spoke of his father-like support and research guidance. His colleagues and friends cherished memories of happier times.

The campus will not only miss a brilliant educator and innovator but also a life-long resident, an open and humble human being who could be regularly seen in addas and driving around in his small blue Maruti.

Content Writer:- Arkaprabha Pal, Office of Alumni Affairs & Branding

Email: pal18arkaprabha@gmail.com