IOT – The KGP Chronicle

IIT Kharagpur calls for 100 Patents in 100 days

Aligning with India’s Semiconductor Mission and with an aim to strengthen the semiconductor facilities in India and to celebrate India’s Techade Vision and Viksit Bharat @2047, IIT Kharagpur conducted an In-house programme on the India’s Semiconductor Mission in the Netaji Auditorium of the institute that involved 650 participants including students, faculty members, and staff members.

Lighting of the Lamp

The programme began with the lighting of the lamp by Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur in the presence of Prof. Amit Patra, Deputy Director; Prof. Rintu Banerjee, Dean, R&D; Prof. Krishna Kumar, Dean, FoS; Prof. T K Bhattacharya, HoD, E&ECE; Prof. A K Singh, President, TSG; Captain Amit Jain (Retd.), Registrar of IIT Kharagpur.

Prof. Rintu Banerjee, Dean R&D addresses the gathering

A brief introduction of the India’s Semi-conductor Mission was addressed by Prof. Rintu Banerjee, Dean R&D, IIT Kharagpur that gave a vivid idea about how semi-conductors are evolving to be the basic ingredient for all our operating and manufacturing devices. Prof. Banerjee highlighted the need of a streamlined applications of ISM that is necessary for Quantum Computing and Quantum Mission. She added that IIT Kharagpur has to take the lead role in ISM and has the adequate resources to support this mission with IP protection and infrastructure development. She also encouraged the war cry for “100 Patents in 100 Days and further towards 100 Patents in 100 Hours.”

Students, Faculty and Staff Members gathered in the Netaji Auditorium

A special drive of Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy Cell of IIT Kharagpur, has successfully filed an increase in about 2.5 folds enhanced patent filing in the year 2023 compared to previous year 2022. Similarly, a 4-fold increase in the number of granted patents has been achieved by the Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy Cell with the Special initiative taken. A record number of 106 patents have been filed and 71 got granted in 2023 which is more than 4 times compared to 2022. The patents are from different fields viz Aerospace, Agricultural and Food Processing, Chemical, Electrical, Civil, Computer Science, AI and IoT, Cryogenics, Robotics, Rubber Technology, 6G & beyond telecommunication, Energy Science, Industrial and Systems, Metallurgical and Materials, Mining, Nanoscience and Technology, Medical Science and Technology.

Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur addressing the gathering

Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur remarked, “I congratulate all the faculty members, scholars and students for their initiatives and innovations with special thanks to the Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy Cell. ‘100 days 100 patents’ drive has a special promotional effect on the entire patent prosecution process. We have also taken special initiative for International patent filings. IIT Kharagpur have produced the national as well as global leaders that dominate the AI and Semi-conductor industry today and the institute has already engaged 10,000 students for AI in Cyber Physical Systems aiming to incubate 20,000 students in the next cohort. The institute is working towards infrastructure development for Assembling and Testing Facility to create the ecosystem to implement ISM successfully and critical mass education at the B.Tech, M.Tech & PhD level along with 35,000 specialized technicians along with global university collaborations for industry-academia participation.”

Live Telecast of Prime Minister’s Address

India’s Semiconductor Mission has been setup by the Government of India to create an end-to-end semiconductor ecosystem to enable the nation to become a significant player in the global semiconductor industry. Therefore, to celebrate India’s Techade Vision, India’s Semi-Conductor Mission and how Viksit Bharat @2047 can be achieved through research and innovation, IIT Kharagpur conducted an In-house programme in the Netaji Auditorium of the institute that involved the participation of the students, faculty members, and staff members. The institute also conducted a Panel Discussion on the Scope & Opportunities of IIT Kharagpur in Indian Semiconductor Mission with the senior faculties of the institute.

Prof. T K Bhattacharya, HoD, Electronics & Electrical Communication Engineering giving his presentation on ISM

Prof. T K Bhattacharya, HoD, Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering gave a presentation on India Semiconductor Research Centre (ISRC) Vision to drive an innovation roadmap in advanced semiconductor and packaging technologies, coordinate university research and accelerate manufacturing capability across India and the world that includes Academic Research & Development; Industry Research & Development; Volume Manufacturing; India University Innovation Pipeline and Research Collaboration. He amplified the need for foundational research pillars for ISRC that comprises of Advanced Logic; Packaging R&D; Compound/Power Semiconductor and Chop Design & EDA and gave a detailed ideation on mapping R&D Investments. He also emphasized on the need for Academic R&D; Educated Workforce; ISRC Structure and Governance; ISRC indigenously developed agenda for global impact etc.

Prof. Anandaroop Bhattacharya, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering giving a presentation on ISM Packaging

His presentation was followed by Prof. Anandaroop Bhattacharya, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur who presented the need for Design Semiconductor Packaging and Systems (DSPS). He defined Electronic and Integrated System Packaging that are essential commodities required for ISM.

Panel Discussion on Scope & Opportunities of IIT Kharagpur in Indian Semiconductor Mission

After the address of the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, a panel discussion was organized on the topic, “Scope & Opportunities of IIT Kharagpur in the Indian Semiconductor Mission,“ with Prof. Amit Patra, Deputy Director; Prof. T K Bhattacharya, HoD, E&ECE; Prof. D K Goswami, Physics; Prof. S. Basu Majumdar, HOC, (MSC); Prof. Anandaroop Bhattacharya, ME; Prof. Mrinal Kanti Mandal, E&ECE; Prof. Samit K Ray, Physics; Prof. S S Das, GSSST and Prof. S K Varshney, E&ECE. The entire programme was hosted by Dr. Rajeev Rawat, Hindi Officer, IIT Kharagpur. The programme concluded with a Vote of Thanks by Captain Amit Jain (Retd.), Registrar, IIT Kharagpur.

Media Coverage:

News 18 Bengali	Kolkata Hindi News
Amader Bharat	The Bengal Post
KGP News	Free Press Journal

Career 360

The Print

Coalfield Mirror

By: Poulami Mondal, Digital & Creative Media Executive (Creative Writer)
Email: poulami.mondal@iitkgp.ac.in, media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282007

Follow us: Facebook – IIT Kharagpur; Twitter – @IITKgp; Instagram – @iit.kgp; LinkedIn – Indian Institute of Technology
For news visit: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/

IIT Kharagpur inks MoU with HCLTech to Jointly Develop Innovative and Sustainable Solutions for Petroleum Industry

IIT Kharagpur inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with HCLTech, a leading global technology company on 31 May 2023, to collaborate in the field of petroleum engineering and earth sciences. HCLTech and IIT Kharagpur will jointly develop innovative and sustainable solutions to address critical challenges of the petroleum industry including reduction of carbon footprint and provide significant sustainable solutions towards net zero carbon emissions.

“We are pleased to work with HCLTech on this path-breaking initiative. Academia and industry need to forge such symbiotic partnerships that will be instrumental in advancing research and innovation in technology, besides creating a skilled workforce. Joint activities in research and knowledge development have tremendous potential for creating economic and social impact on society,” said Prof. Chandan Chakraborty, Dean (R&D), IIT Kharagpur.

Under the agreement, HCLTech will work to provide opportunities to students and research scholars from IIT Kharagpur to undertake projects and internships at the company, using state-of-the-art technologies to develop digital solutions in the exploration, drilling and production of hydrocarbons. Both IIT Kharagpur and HCLTech will initiate collaboration on programmes of sustainability that includes discussions, podcasts and joint presentations at international forums on transformative initiatives in the oil and gas sector.

“We are pleased to announce our partnership with IIT Kharagpur, which is focused on developing advanced solutions for the oil and gas industry using cutting-edge technologies such as AI/ML, IoT, Industry 4.0, digital engineering, and cloud computing. We aim to introduce eco-friendly solutions that promote innovation, optimize value and prioritize low-carbon sustainability within the industry,” said Ajay Bahl, Chief Growth Officer, Americas, Mega Industries, HCLTech.

Across the value chain, HCLTech provides solutions spanning complex engineering in the upstream and leverages its experience and capabilities in digital transformation, IoT, automation, analytics and artificial intelligence to help unlock value for organizations in their transformation journey.

HCLTech is a global technology company, home to more than 225,900 people across 60 countries, delivering industry-leading capabilities centered around digital, engineering and cloud, powered by a broad portfolio of technology services and products. We work with clients across all major verticals, providing industry solutions for Financial Services, Manufacturing, Life Sciences and Healthcare, Technology and Services, Telecom and Media, Retail and CPG, and Public Services. Consolidated revenues as of 12 months ending March 2023 totaled $12.6 billion. To learn how we can supercharge progress for you, visit hcltech.com.

Media Coverage :

Times of India	Telegraph	Economic Times
Business Standard	The Print	CNBC TV 18
Deccan Herald	Dainik Jagran	Hindi Bartaman
Devdiscourse	Edex Live

By : Poulami Mondal, Digital & Creative Media Executive (Creative Writer)
Email: poulami.mondal@iitkgp.ac.in, media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282007

Follow us on: Facebook – IIT Kharagpur; Twitter – @IITKgp; Instagram – @iit.kgp; LinkedIn – Indian Institute of Technology
For news visit: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/

Face to Face with Alumni

“We require transformation and transition to meet future goals in terms of Alma Connect”, said Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur who indulged in a face to face virtual meet with the Distinguished Alumnus of IIT Kharagpur from India & overseas on 27 December 2022. He focused on some key areas where alumni support is needed to provide exposure to students and to initiate infrastructure development for IIT Kharagpur. The meet started with the recitation of Sararswati Vandhana which revitalized the spirits in a cold December morning.

The opening remarks were presented by Prof. Amit Patra, Deputy Director, IIT Kharagpur, who gave us a broader perspective on self sustenance of the institute and pointed out the three C’s that includes Connect, Communicate and Contribute to communicate well with our Alumni. He added that apart from providing statistical data to them, we may encourage our Alumni to engage in meaningful dialogue. Once an active communication channel is established the process of contribution will happen naturally as our Alumni have always been very generous to their Alma Mater. Not only through monetary contribution, their knowledge, mentorship, guidance and participation will be helpful in various institute activities.

Shri Peter Chan, Distinguished Alumni and Chief Guest of the 68^th Convocation of IIT Kharagpur addressed the Alumni and shared his experience of visiting his alma mater after 58 long years. He commented that, “So much energy is concentrated on the technical side of the institution but the wellness of the whole campus still lags behind for the staff and support staff including the cooks and malis. You all are one big family, unless you have the family feeling around the campus you cannot move forward in any organization. Being a part of the team is very important.” He concluded that he would give some ideas of implementation and suggestions for improvement. The Alumni can come forward and contribute their valuable feedback because at times you need outside perspective for a better scope of performance.

Shri Arjun Malhotra, Distinguished Alumnus read out the welcome address of Shri Ashoke Deysarkar, President US Foundation. He stated that, “We are at cross roads, past is when government paid for everything and future is where IIT Kharagpur has to pay a part of it. I think that this is a positive step towards building a capitalistic society. We have the talent, energy, vision and together we can build a better, bigger and more prosperous IIT Kharagpur. As an individual, Prof. Tewari cannot do it alone, we all need to walk with him like Gandhi in his Salt March. Together we will overcome the challenges and achieve all the goals that we laid down today.

Prof V K Tewari, while addressing Face to Face with Alumni said that, “IIT Kharagpur always uphold the nation’s pride, creates standards of globalization with domestic innovations, finest quality of research and affordable technologies, which is ultimately going to create and contribute towards the Self-Reliance of this country, India. In 2019, IIT Kharagpur was declared Institute of Eminence and from that time the Institute has aligned its activities towards the nation building, high class education with best in class students over the years, we have hone their skills in various domains along with a sense of entrepreneurship, innovation and sense of nationalism. The National Education Policy (NEP 2020) has been very popular among the globe and from the time of its inception we have been able to modify our course curriculum at the under graduate level and at the post graduate level which we have completed this year. We have also changed our MSc. Courses which were of 5 years in Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Geology, Geophysics and have been changed into 4 years BS Degree and MS Degree. We have given lot of flexibility to students in terms of the entry/exit policy along with variation in multidisciplinary education. We have initiated the high end technologies to be provided and implemented in various disciplines. Artificial Intelligence (AI) out today has a lot to contribute, in 2020 it was decided that any student who joins the institute at UG, PG or at Research level have to undergo a course on AI & ML (Machine Learning), so that in his/her domain knowledge they would be able to apply them and leverage the befit of these technologies in IoT, Blockchain technologies etc. Our students are being prepared for the industry and in the new curriculum, we have given 6-8 months of industry experience to our students which is going to start from 2023 summer. The Alumni can help us to connect to these areas of exposure for the students to explore. Now the students can go to the other universities and have a one semester course there. We also have provisions for people coming from other institutes at this place and have the same course here.

The Career Development Centre of IIT Kharagpur is leading with 1600 plus placements among all other IITs and have about 45 international offers with 12 offers ranging from 1 – 2.6 cr which is also the highest among all other IITs. In every department and centre we are trying to inculcate entrepreneurship through product development. Out of the compendium of 75 innovations, top 25 innovations have been chosen for funding so that they can be developed into products among which some of them have already been industrialized and commercialized into products. The Alumni can help us and guide us so that these products are available commercially in 2-3 years of time. We are marching towards the Platinum Jubilee where we need the valuable guidance and initiatives of Alumni in mentoring and supporting us on the celebration of this grand accomplishment and to show the world what IIT Kharagpur was meant for in 1951 when it was established on the lines of MIT with the faculty to student ratio being 5:1, having 224 students and 42 teachers. Now we have more than 15000 students and 800 staffs. We are at par with other universities when it comes to faculty to faculty research basis and have the resources and infrastructure among the best of the world. To encourage our staff and faculty, this year we have given 35 awards to our faculties at the Associate and Assistant level in the form of Chair Professorships and Faculty Excellence Awards which would motivate them to work hard along with 32 Staff Excellence Awards (non-teaching).

IIT KGP is also heading many national schemes like GIAN which is Global Initiative for Academic Networking along with SPARC which is Scheme for Promotion of Academic Research Collaboration across the globe. More than 1600 faculties have come here from foreign and more than 1700 subjects have been taught by the eminent faculties across the globe. More than 1 lakh students have been benefited across the NITs, IITs and other centrally funded universities and colleges. IIT Kharagpur has also successfully conducted JEE Advanced in 2021 and GATE 2022.

I would request the Alumni to connect us better with the other Alumni who are doing well elsewhere around the globe and recognize them. Along with them, we can create an expected corpus of 4000 crore. We have started a hospital under the name of Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee where 260 beds were donated by the Alumni which has started its OPD from last year and is soon going to start the IPD. I request all my faculty friends and Alumni friends to run this hospital as venture capitalist of Section 8 companies. It will be a clinical hospital for our medical college students under the name of Dr. B. C Roy which will be established to impart MBBS education. I hope with your help, support, blessing and guidance, we will be in a position to have a Medical College with 100 students to start with. The government of West Bengal has supported us in various ways including the security of the campus and seen to it that this hospital comes up to serve the biggest district of Bengal, i.e Midnapur. I am confident that this hospital will be accessed by many as it will be a contribution to affordable healthcare in a place like Kharagpur.

Our illustrious Alumni Shri Vinod Gupta has recently inaugurated the A. C. Pandya Students Activity Centre in name of his Prof. A. C Pandya. Very soon we will be establishing the DRDO Industry-Academia Centre of Excellence with an investment of 200-300 crores and initiated the process of recruiting the Director for the same. We are working in close proximity with the government of India, our esteemed Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, Hon’ble Shiksha Mantri, Government of India who has blessed, supported and motivated us to go ahead and given the responsibility to start the first campus this country abroad, IIT Malaysia scheduled to be operational from August 2023. We have received a very enthusiastic cooperation from the government of Malaysia to have IIT Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur. With the 400-500 acres of campus, it will be huge boast to their economic development and establish the IIT brand in Malaysia while keeping the standards of IIT, JEE Advanced and others. The students will also spend a year at IIT Kharagpur for their respective curriculum. I am very much thankful to my Alumni Mr. Ron Gupta, Mr. Ashoke Dey Sarkar, Mr. Vinod Gupta and also met Mr. Sundar Pichai for their associations.

We have initiated and renewed our collaborations with different Universities in United States and United Kingdom including University of Warwick (WMG) and Manchester University in dual degree and PhD. We have recently signed an MoU with African-Asian Rural Development Organization (AARDO) which has 36 African countries from where we have 8 students in the Agricultural and Food Engineering department for MS degree. Till date we have 63 international students on campus and we need your help to have at least one foreign faculty/professor for each department, centre and schools and have also initiated to employ Professors of Practice in this regard. This year we have accommodated more than 2000 students and I am very thankful to their parents for their cooperation. Currently, we are struggling a bit with the construction of hostels and infrastructure development for which I need our Alumni to come forward and take the lead to make these available. We need to augment the facilities at Gymkhana and we are looking for the scope to revamp the facilities of lawn tennis, swimming pool, hockey ground and food court.

The Government of India has also asked us to initiate a Department of Education which was laid on the thought that if we want top quality students in IITs, they need to be taught by the top quality teachers in Maths, Chemistry, Physics, Economics and Computers in schools. The government have thought that by 2030, they should have at least 30,000 top quality teachers for which the IITs have been chosen with proper induction of exams at par with JEE accordingly. I would request my faculty friends and Deans to indulge in more autonomy when it comes to decision making. We need innovations in subjects and changes is required in domain knowledge transfer of disciplines along with initiating newer courses. The theory should be revamped and substituted with practical industry ideas and expertise with industry experts as well. We have things coming up with IBM on the same lines. Though I am not happy with my performance, but I hope to get more support from my faculty friends and Alumni to make this Institution among the top 10 in the world.

The virtual meet was convened by Cdr V K Jaitly, Distinguished Alumnus and was followed by question answer round from the Alumni. The closing remarks were given by Shri Varadarajan Seshamani, President of IIT KGP Foundation India.

Times of India (Kolkata)

By : Poulami Mondal, Digital & Creative Media Executive (Creative Writer)
Email: poulami.mondal@iitkgp.ac.in, media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282007

Follow us: Facebook – IIT Kharagpur; Twitter – @IITKgp; Instagram – @iit.kgp; LinkedIn – Indian Institute of Technology
For news visit: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/

IIT KGP Setting India’s VAIBHAV Roadmap

IIT Kharagpur to lead High-Performance Computing, Internet of Things, Agro Economy and Food Security at Govt. of India’s VAIBHAV Summit.

Vaishwik Bharatiya Vaigyanik (VAIBHAV) Summit, a global summit of overseas and resident Indian scientists and academicians are being organized by the various science & technology and academic organizations under the Govt. of India. The Summit, which will be launched by the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi on October 2, 2020, (0630 PM IST), aims to enable deliberations on thought processes, practices and R&D culture with a problem-solving approach for well-defined objectives. IIT Kharagpur has been selected to champion the verticals of ‘Communication Technology’ and ‘Computational Sciences’ both pertaining to the domain of Electrical Sciences and ‘Agro Economy and Food Security’.

Under the first two verticals, the Institute is organizing two horizontal sessions namely

1) High-performance computing and its application and

2) Internet of Things: Integrating Sensing, Communication and Computing All Together.

The initiative will be led by Prof. Niloy Ganguly and Prof. Pralay Mitra from the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering.

High-performance computing (HPC) architecture is developed through a high-speed network of multiple computer servers. Therefore, HPC, utilizing its multiple computing resources, delivers a facility to solve a variety of scientific and engineering problems that could otherwise be difficult to solve using a desktop computer. In research and development, HPC allows performing concurrent jobs in parallel to speed up the computation.

“Under this horizontal, we wish to discuss the recent developments of HPC architectures and how efficiently these can be utilized to solve the cutting-edge computational problems. In recent times HPC has enabled the development of various fields including system biology, machine learning, large-scale real-life model simulation studies and the application in turn has helped in optimizing the HPC architecture. In this session, we would like to discuss this two-way flow and the challenges which need to be tackled thereby,” explained Prof. Pralay Mitra who will be chairing the session.

The other vertical of ‘Communication Technologies’ revolves around the concept of “Connected World” which has now become a reality than a concept with millions of devices controlling our daily lives and activities. Internet of Things (IoT) is not only confined within the sensing devices anymore, rather it spans to any ubiquitous system sharing and triggering the data of the Internet and participating in intelligent control and decision-making processes. In recent times, devices have become intelligent enough to support sensing, communication as well as the processing of the information, even in a battery-less setting. Considering the widespread applications of IoT in our day to day lives, it would be interesting to explore the technology through all its verticals, starting from sensing, communication, computation along with the security of information.

“Our session on Internet of Things will specially aim at discussing the challenges pertaining to convergence of communication, computing and sensing and the possibility the technology holds in developing the Indian industry,” said Prof. Ganguly.

This session will be chaired by Prof. Sandip Chakraborty from the department.

The third vertical led by Prof. Rintu Banerjee and Prof. D. K. Swain from the Dept of Agricultural & Food Engineering will cover the horizontal segments:

Precision Agriculture: ICT and Big-Data Analytics for Empowerment of Stakeholders
Application of Nanotechnology in Food/Feed Processing and Metabolic Biology of Food

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is an emerging field focusing on the enhancement of agricultural production and rural development in India. It enables the dissemination of the essential information to the farmers at the right time, when combined with the power of Big-Data. ICT and Big-Data Analytics have the needed potential to revolutionize the accessibility of its stakeholders to the variety of agricultural information in an effective manner. Such information-rich farmers are thus empowered to make appropriate decisions to increase their yields and reduce economic losses due to the prevailing uncertainties. Under this sub-horizontal, we wish to discuss the recent advances in machine learning, deep learning, and AI; Decision support system and modeling; E-advisories and mobile technologies; and the Traceability from farm-to-fork. The lead faculty members of IIT Kharagpur are Prof. Peeysh Soni and Prof. Rajendra Machavaram.

“In this session, we will ponder on the technological, methodological as well as logistics-related challenges in the context of Indian agriculture; while also discussing appropriate strategies to leverage from ICT and Big-Data Analytics in overcoming those challenges,” remarked Prof.Banerjee.

The researchers will also explore nanotechnology which, over the past few decades, has been recognized as an attractive and alternative technology that has brought a revolution in food research. Being the technology at the atomic scale, the pre-designed and designated molecules have created a revolution in food applications. Because of its inimitable properties, the entire performance of nanotechnology in the food sector can be broadly divided into nanostructure-food ingredients and food nanosensing. The nanostructure elements are involved in food packaging, such as anticaking, humectants, stabilizer, leaving agents etc. On the contrary, any living system upon food intake response differently because of the complex metabolic stimulation where several metabolic cascades are functioning simultaneously. Upon ingestion of bioactive molecules such as phenolics, alkaloids or other phytochemicals, these biomolecules render some extra added defense response to the body, to fight against biotic and abiotic stresses.

“After COVID 19 pandemic, it is a well-established fact that the phytochemicals are undoubtedly participating in increased body immunity and thus it is an interesting area of research to scientifically establish the role of different phytochemicals and analogous molecules on disease prevention and enhancing body immunity. Thus this area of research has been felt extremely appropriate for today’s era for considering the latest happening on food and health care sectors,” added Prof. Banerjee.

VAIBHAV SUMMIT 2020 is that platform where the expert from India and NRIs working in these areas will be participating in the discussion, where the inevitable hurdles and their concomitant solutions will be discussed. In all sessions on eighteen verticals will be presented at the summit.

Ron (Ranbir) Gupta, a US-based alumnus of IIT Kharagpur from the 1970 batch will be talking at the inaugural session on October 2. Ron will throw light at the developments in the area of agritech and other rural technologies. He will further talk about his expert area, infrastructure.

For more information visit: https://innovate.mygov.in/vaibhav-summit/#tab1

Program Details:

Date: October 4, 2020, Time: 06.30 – 09.30 PM IST

Topic: High-performance computing and its application

Vertical: Computational Sciences

Speakers:

Prof. V. Bhavsar- Univ. Of New Brunswick

Prof. Preetam Ghose- Virginia Commonwealth University

Prof. Anil Vullikanti – University of Virginia

Prof. Ananth Kalyanaraman- Washington State University

Prof. Chirag Patel – Harvard University

Prof. Debnath Pal – IISC, Bangalore

Prof. Soumyendu Raha- IISC, Bangalore

Prof. Anshumali Shrivastava- Rice University

Prof. Pramod Batotia- TU Munich

Prof. Subhajyoti De- Rutgers University

Prof. Srinivas Aluru- Georgia Institute of Technology

Prof. Pralay Mitra – IIT Kharagpur

Prof. Somnath Roy- IIT Kharagpur

Prof. Niloy Ganguly- IIT Kharagpur

Date: October 7, 2020, Time: 05.00 – 08.00 PM IST

Topic: Precision Agriculture: ICT and Big-Data Analytics for Empowerment of Stakeholders

Vertical: Agro-Economics and Food Security

Speakers:

Prof. Nitin Kumar Tripathi – AIT Bangkok, Thailand

Prof. Narendra Kumar Ahuja – Uni. Illinois, US

Dr. Manzul Kumar Hazarika – Geoinformatics Center, AIT, Thailand

Dr. Lav R. Khot – WSU, US

Dr. Sindhuja Sankaran – WSU, US

Prof. J. Adinarayana – IIT Bombay

Prof. Prabir K. Biswas – IIT Kharagpur

Prof. Mahua Bhattacharya – ABV IIITM, Gwalior

Prof. Dharmesh K. Saxena – SLIET, Longowal, Punjab

Date: October 13, 2020, Time: 06.30 – 08.30 PM IST

Topic: Internet of Things: Integrating Sensing, Communication and Computing All Together

Vertical: Communication Technologies

Speakers:

Prof. P. R. Kumar- Texas A&M University

Archan Misra – SMU

Aruna Balasubramanium- Stony Brooks

Nishanth Shastry- University of Surrey

Ranga Rao Venkatesha Prasad- Delft University

Nirupam Roy- Maryland University

Niloy Ganguly – IIT Kharagpur

Sandip Chakraborty- IIT Kharagpur

Pralay Mitra- IIT Kharagpur

Bhaskaran Raman- IIT Bombay

Dr K Mourougayene- SAMEER

Date: October 16, 2020, Time: 08.30 – 11.30 PM IST

Topic: Internet of Things: Application of Nanotechnology in Food/Feed Processing and Metabolic Biology of Food

Vertical: Agro Economics and Food Security

Speakers:

Prof. Rabibrata Mukherjee, IIT Kharagpur

Prof. Rekha S. Singhal, ICT Mumbai

Prof. Sunil Kumar Khare, IIT delhi

Prof. Vasudeva Singh, Guwahati University

Prof. Anubhab Pratap Singh, University of British Columbia, Canada

Prof. Kalidas Shetty, North Dakota State University

Prof Keshavan Niranjan, University of Reading

Prof. Arun K. Bhuni, Purdue University

New AI Diagnostics for Lung Diseases

AI and IoT based Diagnostic Device for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases developed by IIT Kharagpur

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a common chronic respiratory disease caused by exposure to harmful gases and particulate matters, with a high health burden on the country’s healthcare services and society. For long, the medical community has been depending on patient history and clinical symptoms for disease diagnosis, which often prevents early detection of the disease and advancing of the disease adds to the medical bill through frequent hospitalizations.

Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed an affordable diagnostic intervention for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease based on the internet-of-things medical devices (IoT-MD) integrated with AI. [Download Journal Paper]

At the Organic Electronics Laboratory (ORELA), Department of Physics, IIT Kharagpur, Prof. Dipak Kumar Goswami and his research team have developed SenFlex.T, a smart mask synced with an android monitoring app through Bluetooth, that can continuously monitor breathing patterns, rate, heart rate, oxygen saturation level in blood. The app is connected to a cloud computing server, where artificial intelligence (AI) has been implemented to predict the severity of COPD through machine learning (ML).

“SenFlex.T can be used at home by patients without having to visit diagnostic centres as against the current practice. This will also address the critical issue of addressing COPD at an early stage and by means of advanced healthcare technology, a boon for both patients and the overall healthcare system,” explained Prof. Goswami.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease has been a top cause of death, second to only deaths due to heart diseases. In 2017 it claimed about 1 million lives in India. In October 2019, health experts, at a medical convention, confirmed that COPD claims more lives than AIDS, TB, Malaria, Diabetes all put together. The threat from COPD has become more acute under the COVID situation, with increased comorbidity rates. A recent survey confirmed that the severity and mortality rates among COPD patients to be affected by the COVID-19 virus are over 63%. Moreover, the patients affected in the COVID-19 virus, which is right now over 4 million people in India and 27 million in the world, are more susceptible to build up various lung disorder-related diseases like COPD, Asthma etc.

“It was crucial for health-tech researchers to develop a diagnostic intervention for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Spirometry, the gold standard test to diagnose obstructive airway diseases like asthma and COPD, is often avoided due to the unavailability of the equipment, difficulty in data interpretation and the cost of the tests. This challenge and the criticality strongly motivated us to develop an AI-based system, that can overcome the problem of interpreting the results and be accessible not only for the doctors but also for the patients,” said Prof. Goswami.

SenFlex.T smart mask contains a highly sensitive, flexible temperature sensor along with a Bluetooth based measuring electronics. The sensor system can continuously monitor the temperature changes of inhaled and exhaled air during breathing and record the breathing pattern. The temperature sensor has a resolution of 4.3 mK and about 25 ms response time. Further, a commercially available pulse oximeter has been integrated with the sensor system to monitor the oxygen saturation level during breathing.

The patient data is uploaded automatically to the cloud server through the mobile app (SenFlex), where it is processed by means of AIML, and reports made available on the app and for doctors’ consultation.

The innovation has been reported in the international journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces [Download Paper]. The researchers have also filed a patent for the innovation and are ready for commercialization. The product cost has been estimated at about ₹ 2,500/-.

Cite Paper: ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2019, 11, 4, 4193–4202

Publication Date:December 31, 2018

https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.8b19051

Media Coverage:

News 18	Careers 360	Economic Times Healthworld
Outlook	Gadgets Now	BioSpectrum
	The Week

Project Information: Prof. Dipak Goswami, dipak@phy.iitkgp.ac.in;

Institute Information: Prof. B N Singh, Registrar, registrar@hijli.iitkgp.ac.in;

Media Outreach: Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

A time to remember

The promo for the Sant’Anna Business Game says, ‘A unique experience which will leave you with a lifetime of memories.’ This is so true. I came back from the competition in Pisa with a bag load of them.

The “Sant’Anna Business Game” presented by “Jebe”, the student-led Junior Enterprise Business & Engineering non-profit consulting organization, is a unique opportunity for 60 talented students from the best universities in Europe and beyond to network with representatives of leading companies. It is held every year at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa.

The competition presents real-life business challenges on marketing, organizational strategy and operational management. Students enrolled for a bachelor’s or a Master’s degree program can enrol for the game and take an online pre-selection test before they go for a higher challenge set by one of the corporate partners (Bain & Co. this year) of the event.

Always interested in business plan competitions, I cracked the online challenge and got selected for the two-day round in Pisa (I am a 4^th year B.Tech student of Electrical Engineering). I landed in Pisa on April 8 afternoon and promptly set forth for my BNB accommodation.

What should have been a 20-minute bus ride, took hours because I had clambered onto a bus marked ‘Lam Vardi’ when I should have taken one marked ‘Lam Verde’. Such are the vagaries of foreign travel for the uninitiated. Had it not been for the kindness of a lady, who provided me the internet hotspot (I had no internet as the SIM I had carried along wasn’t working), I would still be roaming the streets of Pisa.

After bonding with my BNB owner over Bollywood (yes, she is a great fan), Phoebe from that cult soap ‘Friends’ and Maggi, cooked my style, I went around Pisa that evening strictly following her directions.

The competition was early next morning. The business game this time was partnered by Luxottica, Bain & Co., Generali, IBM and Amplifon. Each company provided a challenge for which the 60 participants were divided into 12 teams of 5 each. We were given three hours to work on the challenge and then we had to give a 5 minute PPT presentation.

On the first day of the competition, the challenges were set by Luxottica and Generali. The Luxottica challenge mainly focused on recruitment problems. Generali asked us to ponder on the role of an insurance company in a world dependent on Internet of Things (IoT). We were to gauge how the scenario of the insurance industry will change once IoT penetrates into the general life of more and more people. This challenge required a good understanding of the insurance sector and required innovative thinking about ways to integrate insurance and IoT.

The next day, IBM asked us to create a chatbot, and implement it in an area which we thought was best suited for it. After understanding how the interface works, we were required to model, train and implement our chatbot to enhance human experience in real life sectors. As an engineer with fairly good coding skills, this challenge was one where I contributed the most to the team.

The Amplifon challenge was about the marketing of a newly-launched mobile application. Since the company targets a customer base above the age of 55, the major obstacle for it was to get people of this age to use this application. The target was to boost digital adoption by customers.

I didn’t win but my overall experience of the competition is amazing as I got to learn a colossal amount of things. The exposure to different kinds of people and performing together as a team despite language barriers and different perspectives was one of the most valuable takeaways from the event.

The other takeaways are obviously the sights and sounds of Italy. I wonder if anyone can beat the nail-biting finish to my sojourn – all thanks to me.

I missed my train early morning train to Venice the next day as I had overslept. The breath-taking beauty of Venice more than made up for the 123 Euros that I lost. But my exultation over the magnificent views, all of which I shared non-stop with my family and friends, soon landed me in a mess. When I landed in Pisa Centrale at 11.30 in the night, my battery was dying and I had still to make my way to my BNB.

The 30-minute walk took hours as I walked aimlessly in the dark, not knowing the route. A taxi I stopped asked for a sum I couldn’t afford. I ultimately had to plead with a beer-joint owner, who was about to shut down, to give me a few minutes’ time to charge my battery (it didn’t sustain though), and then, after taking many a turn in pitch darkness, I reached my destination taking a tree as my pole star.

I am back at KGP intact, with my bag full of memories – just as the game organizers had promised.

Pictures: Ritik Chachan

Smart Solutions for Smarter India

Times of India News18 India Today Business Standard Ei Samay Outlook Zee Business

Students from IIT Kharagpur have devised unique solutions for smarter & safer industrial operations ranging from detecting counterfeit currency through a mobile app, to nuclear radiation tracking through wearable sensors, to VR based human resources training at a thermal power plant.

Fake Currency Indian Notes (FCIN) have plagued the country for decades leading to not only economic losses for the country but also as the source of funds of various illegal activities even leading to breach of national security. The country has witnessed a mega initiative like demonetization in 2016. The government has also been promoting digital financial transaction which would minimize the circulation of FCIN. The banks and retail traders who manage institutional high-volume cash transactions have adopted various measures to detect FCIN. But how would an end consumer detect such a currency note? Though there are set guidelines by the Reserve Bank of India, an untrained eye can easily falter.

A group of six students from the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering IIT Kharagpur have developed the code for a smartphone application to address this issue. T.Y.S.S.Santosh, Satish Kumar Reddy, Vipul Tomar, Sai Krishna, Drishti Tulsi and D V Sai Surya have developed an image processing application which can detect counterfeit currency. The application which can be installed on smartphones can be used by people at various touch points thus reducing the chances of fraud. Explaining the mechanism, T.Y.S.S.Santosh, the group leader said,

a user can upload a currency note image and the mobile app would verify its authenticity using 25 features extracted from the front and rear side of the currency note. In case of detection of a fake note, the user will also be notified of the failure checkpoints.

In another innovative project, the Department of Atomic Energy gave the challenge of resolving the occupational hazard of people working in the domain of nuclear-powered device. The students were asked to develop a solution for visualising and localising a 3D radiation source along with its size, shape and orientation, given the data on spatial dosage. The 6-member student team from IIT Kharagpur, comprising of Lakshay Bansal, Ch V Sai Praveen, Aditi Kambli, Rajshekhar Singhania, Ayush Mohanty, Kaustubh Agrawal, proposed a solution based on Boltzmann Transport Equations dealing with the flow of heat in fluids from hotter regions to colder ones. The students solved the reverse Boltzmann Transport Equations using the dataset for a given area to estimate the source location.

This solution is well suited to occupational workers carrying wearable sensors detecting radiation dose data. The sensors can pinpoint the location of radiation leaks in nuclear plants and refineries. The solution can also find application in medical radiation therapy or radiotherapy as part of cancer treatment to control or kill malignant cancer cells

– Lakshay Bansal, the team leader.

Another team from the Institute has developed a virtual reality-based application for the training and skill development of the workers through interactive drill based training. The solution is an interactive virtual reality environment of a thermal powerplant with simulations and guides to help operations, maintenance and performance of complex procedures in an efficient and error-free manner.

Our solution offers an economical, intuitive and gamified version of worker training through level wise learning approach. It provides a full set of interactive drills to perform along with quality assessment metrics that could be used by the supervisors to assign different jobs to workers.

– said Rohit Jain who led the team comprising Suresh Gandhi, Sumeet Aher, Ishan Bangia, Sunil Patidar, Ayushi Shakya from IIT Kharagpur.

The students proposed these solutions in the recently concluded Smart India Hackathon 2019 winning some of the top prizes in the nationwide competition held by the Ministry of Human Resources Development, Govt. of India

IIT Kharagpur also hosted the software edition of the Grand Finale of SIH 2019. The prize winners developed codes targeted on smart education solutions. Team CodeLagom developed a wearable Android IoT device for facilitating the education of differently-abled people with vision and hearing impairment. Books in PDF can be uploaded on the web platform of the device which can thereafter be streamed on the wearable device in voice and visual modes. Team LeetCoders wrote the code for a LAN-enabled smart board for classrooms which can detect handwriting in both Hindi and English languages and broadcast the content to connected boards in other classrooms. It can also solve arithmetic equations and saves notes in PDF. The third team, The Creeping Spiders, developed a smart attendance system through facial recognition by means of random image clicks in a classroom or office environment.

Leading Cyber Security Education

Times of India The Week Business Standard

IIT Kharagpur has been adjudged the winner of the DSCI Excellence Award 2018 for Cyber Security Education by NASSCOM‘s Data Security Council of India (DSCI). The Institute, which has been making waves in the areas of cybersecurity, IoT security and associated areas in Artificial Intelligence, was awarded for its focused curricula and research work in cryptography, hardware security, cyber security, network security, that has helped create awareness among students.

“Our research and coursework in cyber security, network security and cryptography are targeted towards delivering the necessary technologies and also creating leaders in research, industry and governance who would bring forward such transformation in India which is undergoing the digital revolution right now as we talk,” said Prof. P P Chakrabarti, Director, IIT Kharagpur.

A number of research ventures led by Prof. Debdeep Mukhopadhyay at the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Kharagpur were primarily considered for this Award. These included DRDO funded projects on developing lightweight protocols for authenticating IoT nodes, IC reverse engineering and trojan detection, and the DST funded Swarnajayanti project on secure authentication protocols for smart grids. The Award committee specially cited the advanced infrastructure and lab equipment procured by the Institute for these projects, including a DRDO funded FIB station for IC imaging.

“At IIT Kharagpur we focus on online and offline security of data in the digital space since our experience at consumer and B2B levels tell us that without appropriate security measures, any data-centric solution would create a Mr. Hyde instead of a Dr. Jekyll,” opined Sikhar Patranabis who received the award at the NASSCOM-DSCI Annual Information Security Summit 2018 on December 5.

Sikhar, a B.Tech. topper in 2015 and currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Kharagpur, is among the few buddying technologists in India pursuing research in the area of cryptographic security for the Internet of Things. “You might think of making your home smart by installing IoT gadgets and applications but what happens, for instance, when the access is overridden by unauthorized entities? By the time you reach home, the security of your house would be breached. So any smart application must be designed keeping the security requirements in mind,” he explained.

Data Security Council of India (DSCI), is a not-for-profit, industry body on data protection in India, set up by NASSCOM, committed to making the cyberspace safe, secure and trusted by establishing best practices, standards and initiatives in cybersecurity and privacy. To further its objectives, DSCI engages with governments and their agencies, regulators, industry sectors, industry associations and think tanks for policy advocacy, thought leadership, capacity building and outreach activities.

The purpose of the DSCI Excellence Award is to recognize, honour and reward organizations and individuals who have taken strategic, proactive and innovative security and privacy efforts to help the organization address real risks, build resilience, increase trustworthiness and create a conducive environment for doing business and thus enable the organization to harness data protection as a lever for business growth.