Tag: network

IIT Kharagpur and Ericsson partner for joint research in AI and Edge Compute

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and Ericsson announced a long term co-operation for joint research in the area of AI, Compute and Radio.  As part of the occasion two mile-stones agreements were inked between both the organizations which will allow researchers from both organizations to collaborate to develop novel AI and distributed compute technology towards 6G research. Additionally, a symposium on Radio and Network research was organized at G S Sanyal School of Telecommunications (GSSST) where leaders from Ericsson Research and IIT Kharagpur participated to discuss the developments and advancements for the future of networks and communication.

Prof. Virendra Kumar Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur said, “In the commitment towards Digital India and making India the hub of technological innovation, this collaboration with Ericsson will be effective for next-generation technology significantly. 6G networks integrated with artificial intelligence will enable AI-powered applications to run faster and more efficiently. In the 6G era, IIT Kharagpur aims to contribute to Radio Access Technology and Network, Core Network, RF & Device Technologies, VLSI Design, Neuromorphic Signal Processing, Services and Applications. The institute also looks forward to participate in Telecommunications Standardization Process, Developing Test Beds, Prototype Development and Commercialization along with training and manpower development. We would also like to give eight months of industry experience to our UG students and one year Industry Projects for our M.Tech students in this domain. This collaborative research partnership in fundamental areas as well as translational research will be transformational for our Future Network Platforms.”

Prof. Rintu Banerjee, Dean R&D, IIT Kharagpur gave an overview of various sponsored research and industrial consultancy activities that are ongoing in the institute. AI and Compute Research is instrumental to Ericsson’s 6G networks as the compute offload needs to be managed dynamically at edge and the policies would primarily be driven by AI. These themes of research are well aligned with IIT Kharagpur and both organizations view this partnership as a way to push the boundaries of fundamental and applied research in the Radio domain.

Elaborating on the partnership between IIT Kharagpur and Ericsson, Dr Magnus Frodigh, Head of Ericsson Research, states, “This collaboration strengthens our R&D commitments in India and is pivotal to Radio, Compute and AI research. We are excited to partner with IIT Kharagpur and look forward to collaborative research in fundamental areas as well as translational research for our Future Network Platforms.” Dr Frodigh also presented Ericsson’s vision on 6G which aims to blend the physical and digital worlds enabling us to improve the quality of life by incorporating widespread Sensor-based communications between humans and machines through digital twins.

The Speakers and Panellists of the Conference included Prof. Suvra Sekhar Das (Head, GSSST), Prof. Debarati Sen, Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti, Prof. Soumyajit Dey and many other faculty members from IIT Kharagpur; Dr Magnus Frodigh, Head of Ericsson Research, Dr Mikael Hook, Head of Radio Research and Dr Mikael Prytz, Head of Network Research.

Nitin Bansal, Managing Director of Ericsson India states, “Ericsson is well poised to lead 6G innovation and we are making significant R&D investments in India in line with our commitment to the country. We are the leaders in 5G and our research initiatives are geared to provide affordable network platforms for ubiquitous connectivity all across the country”.

Some of the key initiatives finalized by both the organizations include:

  • Compute offload and Resource Optimization at edge compute: The project aims to explore resource optimization, dynamic observability and sustainable distributed and Edge computing technologies.
  • RL based Beamforming for JCAS: Safe, Causal, and Verifiable: The project aims to explore causal AI methods for joint communication and sensing (JCAS).

ABOUT IIT KHARAGPUR:

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT KGP) is a higher educational and academic institute, known globally for nurturing industry ready professionals for the world and is a pioneer institution to provide Excellence in Education, producing affordable technology innovations. Set up in 1951 in a detention camp as an Institute of National Importance, the Institute ranks among the top five institutes in India and is awarded, “The Institute of Eminence”, by the Govt. of India in 2019. The Institute is engaged in several international and national mission projects and ranks significantly in research output with about 20 academic departments, 12 schools, 18 centers (including 10 Centre of Excellence) and 2 academies with vast tree-laden campus, spreading over 2100 acres having 16,000+ students. Currently, it has about 750+ faculty, 850+ employees and 1240+ projects. To know more visit: [http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/|www.iitkgp.ac.in] [http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/]

ABOUT ERICSSON:

Ericsson enables communications service providers to capture the full value of connectivity. The company’s portfolio spans the business areas Networks, Digital Services, Managed Services and Emerging Business. It is designed to help our customers go digital, increase efficiency and find new revenue streams. Ericsson’s innovation investments have delivered the benefits of mobility and mobile broadband to billions of people globally. Ericsson stock is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm and on Nasdaq New York. www.ericsson.com

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

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The Institute’s Eleven

Forbes India has just published its sixth edition of ‘30 Under 30 list’. The 2019 list features young achievers who are on the top of their game in their chosen fields. Of that list of 30, close to 40 per cent of the winners come from a single institution – IIT Kharagpur – and 50 per cent of them are Economics majors from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Institute.

The Institute’s 11 are all successful entrepreneurs. Keshav Prawasi (2011/BTech/CS), Nitin Babel (2013/MSc/HS) and Shishir Modi (2012/DD/EE) together run Niki.ai, an artificial intelligence company headquartered in Bangalore that was co-founded by another IIT Kharagpur alumnus, Sachin Jaiswal. Niki is an AI-powered chatbot which works as an intelligent personal assistant, providing a one-stop solution for customers. The clincher for niki.ai is its launch of Hindi voice-command recently.

Kamath Vasanth (2013/MSc/HS), Anugrah Shrivastava (2012/MSc/HS) and Rohan Gupta (2013/DD/CS) are founders of ‘smallcase’, a platform that offers investors the option of creating, or investing in, theme-based portfolios of stocks or exchange-traded funds.

Pushkar Singh (2013/DD/ME), Sudarshan Ravi (2013/MSc/HS) and Ankit Parasher (2012/BTech/EC) run LetsTransport, a Bangalore-based intra-city logistics company that they founded in 2015. Apart from providing round-the-clock service and real-time tracking, its Uber-like app allows customers direct access to drivers.

Pranav Goel (2012/MSc/HS) and Uttam Digga (2012/MSc/HS), both MSc students of Economics of the 2012 Batch, are founders of Resfeber Labs & Porter that provides mini truck services for intra-city pickups and deliveries in India and also provides a platform for logistics support solutions that help clients with relocation, construction supplies, perishable supplies, event management supplies, and e-commerce supplies.

IIT Kharagpur Alumni’s complete dominance of the Forbes 30 Under 30 list has been quite a surprise to the winners themselves. With the sombre level-headedness that follows soon after the elation of success passes, Pushkar Singh of LetsTransport desists from the expected backslapping. He calls it a “proud moment”, but also points out that the fact that so many on the list are from IIT Kharagpur may perhaps be just a coincidence. However, he does not forget to give credit where it is due. He says, “We are all into entrepreneurship and this is also in large part because of the training we received in IIT Kharagpur, its extra-curricular activities and the network we developed in college”.

To be among the like-minded, to be able to tap into a network that would reach deep into its well of experience to come up with the answers is undoubtedly a privilege. Forbes’ account of the inception of ‘smallcase’ in fact talks about how Vasant Kamath, restless after quitting research firm Tracxn in 2015, got things going when he contacted his friend from IIT Kharagpur, Anugrah Shrivastava, who was then creating thematic products for institutional investors at Nomura.

The birth of the other companies would have followed a similar sequence of events – people with similar or diverse skill sets, comfortable in each other’s company, well-acquainted with each other’s strengths given their prior associations, coming together once again to give a shape to an idea or what has been a long-held dream. Not too long ago, another success story from IIT Kharagpur had unfurled in a similar way. While recalling the inception of Capillary Technologies, Aneesh Reddy, co-founder and CEO of India’s largest provider of end-to-end customer engagement solutions for retailers, had said in an interview how he and his co-founders, Krishna Mehra and Ajay Modani, friends since college at IIT Kharagpur and always passionate about starting up a company, had finally taken the plunge two years after college, quitting their jobs that had taken them on different paths.

Ravi Sudarshan, also of LetsTransport, too harks back to his college days, “its diverse mind set and the various programmes to encourage entrepreneurship”. He says, “The college network too was important given that a lot of the seniors were already into Venture Capital start-ups and having advice on how a start-up worked and how to go about things helped us a lot.” Rohan Gupta of ‘smallcase’ also points out that the network serves as a ready reckoner when any entrepreneur decides to take the plunge.

Although upbeat at breaking into the Forbes list, Ravi, like his friend Pushkar, is willing to distance himself from the euphoria and consider things from the wide angle. “We have been lucky,” he says. The timing, according to him, has been right for all of them. As Ravi points out, “When we passed out, Flipkart had been making its presence felt. There was growing investor confidence. The market was booming. Even in college, we were keenly watching what was happening in the corporate world.”

What Sudarshan hints at is what Forbes puts into words. While celebrating the audacity and enterprise of the achievers, Forbes notes that “Entrepreneurs are seeing the impact of India’s growing internet boom and smartphone connectivity in sustainable B2B models.” It goes without saying that the revolution in the virtual world has tremendously helped IIT Kharagpur’s entrepreneurs on the Forbes list to live their dreams. Be it in retail, finance, logistics, or any of their chosen fields, the internet and smartphone connectivity has been a boon. They have given wings to dreams that sometimes began in college.

As Ravi points out, yes, the timing has been right for many of them. But one still needed to be both brave, if not brash, and smart enough to judge the timing and then grab the opportunities that it elicited with both hands. IIT Kharagpur’s Eleven have done precisely that. Congratulations to them!

 

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