Editorial

Techscape

With great pride, IIT Jodhpur presents the  Convocation Day Issue  of TechScape to you.  While I am writing the  editorial, the world seems a much happier and responsible place, post covid,  and  it is becoming clear  that  the  adoption of digital technologies and sustainable practices will  be  our  way  of living for better tomorrow. In the  current day scenario, we must re-examine the  fundamental role of technology and how  they  are  radically transforming  people’s  relationship to    work    and    knowledge, accelerating   the  spread    of new    opportunities, democratizing access to data,  creating new professions and forging innovative solutions, whilst also raising new challenges.

This special issue  of TechScape represents a defining aspect of IIT J’s approach towards scientific and  engineering research, and how the fundamental role of technology in one’s life has  become a crucial source of collective intelligence. IIT Jodhpur is an example of an academic institution where knowledge is taught, created, preserved, and  used  to solve relevant problems. A decisive aspect of IIT J’s approach is that  we currently have  11 interdepartmental research units (e.g., IDRPs, Centers and  Schools),  besides ten  (10) core department, which cut across departmental boundaries and focus  on  broad research themes or  on  a specific  research mission. Working   across disciplinary boundaries, these interdepartmental research units make it possible for faculty, students, and  staff to work collaboratively on the  solutions of difficult  and  important challenges by applying a variety of  tools  and   perspectives.  Unlocking  the  transformative potential of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research for  sustainable development is our  common ambition and this process is already underway.

For   this    issue,    the   in-focus  section  commences  with a very  insightful work  by Prof.  Sunanda Sangwan on Anthropomorphism and  Virtual  Human Influencer, where she highlights the value to business and  end  users, through virtual entities. Furthermore, the section highlights IIT Jodhpur’s  8th  convocation which  was  held  in  the  physical mode   after   2019.  The   section  elucidate  Shri  Senapathy “Kris”  Gopalakrishnan’s (Chairman –  Axilor  Ventures) address as  Chief  Guest  and  also  highlights the  address by Guest of  Honour, Dr.  Ashish  Lele  (Director,  CSIR –  NCL, Pune)  as part of the  8th Convocation. The “International Conference on Recent Advances  in Mechanical Engineering (ICRAM 2022)” was organized from 25 - 27 August 2022 by the Department of Mechanical Engineering at  Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur. The aim of ICRAM 2022 was to bring together innovative scholars and  industry experts working in the  field of mechanical science and  technology in a joint forum. On  2nd  August,  we  celebrated our  Foundation Day with  presence of esteemed dignitaries, Prof.  Uday B. Desai (Former Director – IIT Hyderabad, Vice Chancellor – Anurag University) and  Prof. Souvik Bhattacharyya (Vice Chancellor – BITS, Pilani). A 4-day Youth Conclave  was organised by IIT Jodhpur  in  collaboration with  Indian National Academy of Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur

Story of Cities

Santanu Chaudhury and Lipika Dey

Cities are part of human civilization. Each City has its own story. They showcase the imprints of evolving human civilisations. Some of the oldest cities like Damascus, Hanoi, Varanasi have stood the test of time apart from human invasions and geographical calamities. Many cities have continuously evolved and survived. In reality, cities are complex social systems that have to cater to social, economic as well as environmental needs.

In 2009, a report of the European Environmental Agency [2] cited that although quality of life has improved in many European cities, many areas such as health have deteriorated. The paradigm of Smart Cities was conceived as a response to the goal of creating the city of the future, where along with guaranteeing the well-being and rights of their citizens, it would be imperative to assess industry and urban planning from an environmental and sustainable point of view. With these goals in mind, smart cities were conceived as places which would be facilitated by internet technologies to provide energy-efficient environment-friendly services in the areas of healthcare, education, entertainment, transportation as well as safety and public services. These applications are increasingly enabled by sensors and embedded systems deployed over common platforms. The last decade has seen a considerable rise in effort to ensure the requisite infrastructure for providing the services, along with participatory innovative processes to create citizen- friendly applications.

As data science progressed, the opportunity for data-driven future planning of smart cities has also grown. Smart city planners can not only use data to improve the performance and efficiency of the currently deployed applications, but also to forecast, respond, and plan for future scenarios. The data also assists in the decision- making process to design practices that encourage community engagement and increase participation of citizens by improving digital literacy and culture.

In the following we present case studies based analytical insights about smart cities.

A Decade of Smart Cities

During the initial years, there was no universal consensus about how a smart city should be defined or assessed, or what should be the expectations of its citizens. A comprehensive study focusing on 200 European cities [2] identified several fields of activity that are described in literature in relation to the term ‘smart city’. In 2012, Cohen proposed six aspirational goals for a smart city namely smart economy, smart environmental practices, smart living, smart mobility and smart people [3]. Key drivers for each goal were also specified. In 2014, Cocchia proposed three dimensions for conducting literature surveys for smart cities : technological, human and institutional, under which different activities could be categorised [4]. The technology dimension included concepts related to infrastructures. The human dimension includes concepts related to people i.e. education, learning and knowledge that are key drivers for the smart city. The institutional dimension includes concept related to governance and policy, which covers the cooperation between various stakeholders and institutional governments. In 2015, Yin et al. proposed four major domains for assessing smart cities [5]. These were business- related, citizen-related, environment-related and government- related categories. Each of them was further divided into several subdomains.

In the initial days, smart cities were also referred to as digital, as the key focus was on technology-enabled services, especially Information Communication Technologies (ICT). However, over the years, there has been a conscious effort towards ensuring better quality of life in a more holistic sense. Data and information from different case studies carried out globally revealed that smart people, smart living, and smart governance methods that have come into practice at a later stage are as important as smart mobility, smart environments, and smart economy measures that were implemented early on, and cities are opening up to new, transparent participatory governance approaches where citizens play a key role.

In 2019, Sánchez-Corcuera published a detailed analysis of several urban city systems that use data-driven smart applications for their smooth functioning [6]. The study was based on analysis of case-studies reported from several cities across the world. The review highlights that while earlier smart cities have mostly focused on technology to achieve environmental benefits, the current wave of smart cities emphasise on the inclusion of socio-economic capital and community engagement. The need of the hour is for applications that can facilitate citizen participation to support decision making and policy formulation. Novel ways of governing that can engage stakeholders are emerging.

In 2022, Kaluaracchi [6] proposed a taxonomy that combined Cohen’s indicators with Yin’s subdomains and also included newly emerging indicators. This is presented in Figure 1. This figure illustrates that the current and future smart cities will have to focus on promoting citizen participation in governance and active decision making in all walks of social life.

Along with other attributes, an important characteristic of future smart cities would be determined by its predictive capability to anticipate future trends and uncertainties, and be equipped to mitigate risks, if not pre-empt them altogether. Our analysis of 66 articles published in a special issue of Journal of Sustainable Cities and Society in 2022, also reveal an increasing focus on the topic of algorithmic decision making for smart cities. We applied Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) based topical analysis on these articles to identify the prominent topical clusters present in the articles. Following this, an analysis was done to isolate the dominant topics and the sub-areas addressed under each topic.

Developing models for energy management, trading, optimization and multi-energy microgrids dominates the scientific studies. This also covers use of renewable energy sources like solar power and water. These models also incorporate concepts of reusability and recycling. Building digital twins powered by data-driven as well as knowledge- driven models is also proposed as a way forward. These models use a wide array of advanced techniques from the theory of complex systems and data sciences, including complex network theory, machine learning techniques, causal inference, etc.

The next most frequently appearing topic aims at designing resilient spaces. Resilience covers a wide array of factors like heat, water, power outages and also resiliency of livelihoods. Role of social support networks in providing support during natural or man-made disasters are studied.

Another area that is receiving wide-spread attention is the need to have geo-specific assessment frameworks for smart cities. The need to study different types of demand and supply networks for different aspects is emphasised in this context. Though a wide range of aspects are discussed in this context, the dominant aspect is to study road and river networks that can enable and ensure sustainable supply chains. The importance of studying urban food availability and addressing issues of social inequalities is also discussed.

Studying building-related issues include analysis of building types by their geometries, design, orientation, construction material and energy consumption. Studies are also done on ventilation capacities of cities with high- rise buildings, as reduced ventilation leads to accumulation of heat in such cases. Sustainability studies on prefabricated buildings in China also reveal that new construction, extension, renovation and demolition of these have also led to an increase in the amount of carbon emission. Sustainable building technology needs to focus on this urgently. Outdoor thermal comfort for elderly and children is also a major area of concern for city planners.

One of the emerging trends of smart city research is aimed at understanding the effects of new media and technology on human psychology. This includes studying the complex interaction between the human mind and new kinds of media installed at public spaces. The effects of using different types of audio-visual interactions for indoor and outdoor environments are studied. Indoor planning is also gaining traction as focus shifts from making smart cities merely functional towards providing more comfortable and enjoyable living experience. Public places like business district walkways, parks etc. are also being reimagined to ensure a safe and comfortable experience to visitors.

The next most frequently appearing topic aims at designing resilient spaces. Resilience covers a wide array of factors like heat, water, power outages and also resiliency of livelihoods. Role of social support networks in providing support during natural or man-made disasters are studied.

Another area that is receiving wide-spread attention is the need to have geo-specific assessment frameworks for smart cities. The need to study different types of demand and supply networks for different aspects is emphasised in this context. Though a wide range of aspects are discussed in this context, the dominant aspect is to study road and river networks that can enable and ensure sustainable supply chains. The importance of studying urban food availability and addressing issues of social inequalities is also discussed.

Studying building-related issues include analysis of building types by their geometries, design, orientation, construction material and energy consumption. Studies are also done on ventilation capacities of cities with high- rise buildings, as reduced ventilation leads to accumulation of heat in such cases. Sustainability studies on prefabricated buildings in China also reveal that new construction, extension, renovation and demolition of these have also led to an increase in the amount of carbon emission. Sustainable building technology needs to focus on this urgently. Outdoor thermal comfort for elderly and children is also a major area of concern for city planners.

One of the emerging trends of smart city research is aimed at understanding the effects of new media and technology on human psychology. This includes studying the complex interaction between the human mind and new kinds of media installed at public spaces. The effects of using different types of audio-visual interactions for indoor and outdoor environments are studied. Indoor planning is also gaining traction as focus shifts from making smart cities merely functional towards providing more comfortable and enjoyable living experience. Public places like business district walkways, parks etc. are also being reimagined to ensure a safe and comfortable experience to visitors.

Anthropomorphism and Virtual Human Influence

Sunanda Sangwan

Anthropomorphism is the  attribution of human traits, emotions, or  intentions to  non-human  beings or  entities including robots, machines or any virtual character [1]. Anthropomorphism has long been  prevalent in arts  and literature, and  children fairy tales  and  fables,  where for instance,  animals  and   fictional characters  are   assigned human characteristics. The  concept has  recently started to  being  used  in  computer science, such  as  Japanese  Moe anthropomorphism where in anime, Moe qualities are assigned to non-human beings and entities such as animals, plants, and  fantastical characters through computer generated imagery (CGI) [2]. Anthropomorphs entities and characters are  also  personally and  socially  characterized by their accessories which  has  a large  online buyer market [3]. The term has  also  gained usage  to refer to the  feelings of affection towards any virtual subject. In psychology it is described as  an  expression of innate tendency of human emotions to be related with  “something”[1].  An example, perhaps a little  extreme, is when  a Japanese  man  married one of such virtual fictional character three years  ago. [4]

These  emotional associations with virtual entities are  being successfully exploited by marketers as “virtual influencers”, distinct from  a human influencer in social  media or digital space.  An influencer is an  expert, who  excels  in a specific field of knowledge or subject, and  through this  specialized authority or  insights, exerts influence on  others’ thought process [5]. Their  prominent presence in physical or digital space,  makes an influencer a useful  marketing instrument. For instance, an influencer’s association brings credence to a product or  brand and  thereby positively influencing the target audience [5]. This  is the  reason celebrities from  the fields like art  and  sports are widely used  in advertising and promotion of brands. 

Unlike human influencer, a virtual human influencer being a digital  character or entity, is without any pre-existing presence [2]. It is a new unique virtual human and is different from  a surrogate for an existing physical influencer known as avatar or digital  twin. In this sense it is anthropomorphic creation, and its success depends on different attributes than its human counterpart, in design-attractiveness, interactive and  engaging content and  so on [6]. Virtual  influencers can be  static in  character like  emojis  and  written  reviews; or dynamic like virtual humans who actively  engage with their followers [7]. These  have  also  been  classified as humanoid and  non-humanoid fictional characters who live in the  real world  [6]. 

Virtual  human influencers (VHI) are  perceived to  be  more cost-effective than other traditional marketing mechanism [6,7]. For  instance, on  social  media a VHI, who  has  a large number of followers can spread content quickly  and effectively  using  various platforms. For  this  reason, brand managers are reaching out to them for promotions in online games, metaverse and on other digital  platforms [8]. 

A successful example of a virtual human influencer is that  of Miquela  Sousa  or Lil Miquela who is designed as a 19-year- old  Brazilian-American female  fashion model  and  started as  an  Instagram based  influencer [9]. She  has  millions  of followers, and  her  earnings are  estimated to be around $10 million  by being  the  digital  face  of brands like  Prada and Samsung. She has also starred alongside human models and has released several Spotify singles songs.  Like any real-life human influencer, she influences her  followers’  purchasing decisions and  takes  a brand’s message to her  large  number of audiences.

Virtual   Human  Celebrities  do   not   use   the   product  or service, but  their experiences are  created and  managed by their creators in  physical space.   Together with  followers or  audience, the  creators create content and  manage the functional  relationships   and    collaborations  [6,7].  Once an  imagery is  created these influencers are  perceived to be cost-effective. Fixed and variable costs  and drudgery involving  a human celebrity is much reduced. Management of virtual appearances of the  influencer, production of generating content and   can  be  held   any  time   anywhere [7,8]. Using CGI technologies and holograms, VHI can attend multiple functions in  real time  places   and  are  reliable to employ.  Consumers  share  their  emotions,  perceptions, and  reviews about a brand more easily with  a virtual entity [3,4,6,7]. An absence of emotional aspects of dealing with  a human being  allows  marketers’ work  life smoother. Brands are  finding virtual influencers useful  ambassadors and  are creating digital  characters of their own, like Liv, of Renault automotive brand [10]. Yet VHI is not less costly to maintain as the  technological innovation requires constant upgradation of the entity itself. To sustain a VHI requires a skilled team  of graphic designers and creative content writers [6,8]. VHI may also suffer  from fad-fatigue and fad-boredom syndrome and consumer and user interest in them can decline overtime [6]. It raises ethical concerns about the promotion of a synthetic and   false  society   or  at  least   increasing  interaction  with synthetic characters [11], disrupting something integral like truth and trust in society. 

To conclude, while  it is understandable the  cost-based and other benefits virtual human influencers bring  to marketers, it  is  interesting to  research why  consumers and  humans can  relate better to  and  engage actively  with  these virtual entities?

Convocation Address by Chief Guest
(12th November 2022)

Shri Senapathy Kris Gopalakrishnan

Shri Senapathy “Kris” Gopalakrishnan

Chairman, Axilor Ventures

Chief Guest, 8th Convocation, IIT Jodhpur

 

Greetings. 

Congratulations to all the  graduates and your  families. Your hard work  over  the  years  has  come  to  fruition, especially during Covid  pandemic. I believe  that  Covid  has  made us stronger, resilient and has increased our faith in science and technology. 

I want  to  congratulate the  faculty  and  staff  of IIT Jodhpur during this  convocation for their tremendous work  in graduating so  many  students. I also  want  to  congratulate them on the  progress made by this  institute over the last 14 years  since  the  inception. Institute building takes  time,  but the progress already demonstrated in the rankings achieved by this institute is commendable. 

Covid has shown us that  unanticipated events can derail the best  laid plans  for the  future. Ukraine war  is another event that  has  affected the  world  with  fuel  price   increase, and higher inflation across the  world.   On  top  of this,  climate change is increasing the number of unusual weather events – floods, hurricanes, extreme temperatures. We do not know if these uncertainties will disappear or will continue. I believe that  it is best  to assume that  future will be uncertain and  all of us need  to create a plan B if best laid plans  get derailed by some  unforeseen events. Resilience is a trait that  each  one of us need  to build  in key aspects of your lives – job, wealth, reputation, education etc.

Having  said  this,  I am  an  optimist and  I believe  that  the next  30 years  are  going  to  be  even  better than the  last  30 years.  The  next  30 years  will span  your  professional lives. It is an opportunity for each  one  of you to leave your  mark in this  world.  To create an impact. To leave  a legacy.  To be remembered for. 

I was  fortunate to be part of the  IT revolution in India  and the world  – lucky to get a ring side view of both of these revolutions. 

For India,  the  industry changed the  perception of India  to a land  of high  quality,  global  talent. The industry currently is USD 200  billion  in  revenues, employs more than 5 million people in India  and  outside India.  Most of the  global multinational companies have their R&D and IT departments in  India.  They  also  outsource these services to  consulting and  IT firms  in India.  India  has  become the  default location for such work. 

During Covid, most of the offices were closed  and employees had  to work  out  of their homes, especially those providing services.  Remote work   became the   only  way  to  provide services; Indian  IT  companies started  and   perfected the processes around remote work from  1980s. 

I am proud of the IT services industry in India  for creating a world  class industry in India, for leading the world  in remote work,  for  creating some   of  the  best  governed companies in  the  world,  and  for  being  entrepreneurial. The  IT story of India  is inspiring a new  generation of entrepreneurs in India.  Many  of the  IT leaders have  now  become investors in  the  start-up  ecosystem in  India.  Over  the  last  5  years, my  colleagues at  Itihaasa and  I have  interviewed many  of the leaders who lead this  IT revolution in India  and have documented their achievements. In  October this  year,  our book titled “Against all odds – The IT Story of India” has been published. You will find many anecdotes on the growth of the IT industry in India in this book and I hope  that you will find the book interesting and educational. 

I saw the  growth of the  digital  computer industry over  the last  45 years.  I passed out  from  IIT Madras in  1979 with  a masters in computer science. Apple introduced the Apple II personal computer in 1977 and  IBM introduced the  IBM PC in 1981. This democratised computing and  changed the  way offices  functioned – all business processes were  converted to execute using the computer. Personal computers changed our   lives   increasing  our   productivity, connectivity, and access to  knowledge. During the  last  45 years,  we  saw  the emergence of Internet, mobile  phones, cloud  computing, social  networks, wearable computing devices etc.  You  will agree with  me  that  digital  computer has  transformed our lives and businesses tremendously. 

The GDP of India  went  from  USD 180 Billion in 1980 to USD 3.2 Trillion today,  a growth of 18 times over 42 years.  Global GDP has gone from  USD 11 Trillion to USD 90 Trillion now, a growth of 9 times over the last 42 times. A lot can change in a lifetime. 

Looking  at  the  next  30  years,   I believe  that  3 trends  will be  important to you. Three trends that  you  can  ride  on  as you  build  your  career. First  one  is technology innovations. Second  is new  opportunity for industry leadership and  the third is India opportunity. Let me elaborate on each one. 

Technology innovation is accelerating with  multiple innovations  transforming   multiple   industries.   On   the digital  computing side,  we are  creating faster and  cheaper processors, cheaper memories, and  new parallel processing capabilities. The first  PC introduced could  process a few hundred instructions per  second. The new processor M2 released by Apple  can  process billions  of instructions per second. And it is cheaper than the first PC. 

Cloud   computing  is   providing  each   user    with   almost unlimited memory capacity with almost no cost. But the most interesting change that  is happening is on the programming paradigm. Till 2010, the  programming paradigm was the traditional paradigm of procedural code.  One  defines the algorithm to solve a problem in detail, converts the algorithm into  a  computer program which   is  then executed by  the computer. Computer follows these program instructions including any error made in the algorithm. 

This  paradigm allowed   us  to  use  the   computer to  solve problems which  we  knew  the  algorithms for.  This  limited the  problems that  could  be  solved  by using  the  computer. For example, using  computers to translate text  from  one language to  another or  to  understand an  image  or  picture was rudimentary. 

In  recent years,  we have  thought about how  human brain could be processing such tasks and we have created computer systems that  try  mimic  how  we  believe  the  brain works – this  paradigm is  called  the  Deep  Machine Learning. Here we teach the  computer with  sample inputs and  outputs and use  the  computing power to figure  out  the  algorithms. The output is the  algorithm and  that  then can  be used  to solve other similar problems. As computers get  more powerful and  as we get more and  more data,  the  computer is used  to figure  out the programs that will solve these problems. 

In narrowly defined tasks like playing chess or the game of Go or image  recognition, computers have become almost equal to humans in providing correct solutions. In computations, computers are   already far  superior to  humans with   the ability to process billions  of computations per second. These capabilities are  called  Artificial  Narrow Intelligence . Over time  combining many  such  machines, weshould be able  to create a machine which  will  show  general intelligence or broad intelligence capabilities. 

Already  AI/ML machines are   used   to  replace humans in several areas like  reading x-rays, voice  recognition and automatic translation in real time,  playing various computer games, medical diagnostics, self driving vehicles, etc. These machines are  used  in identifying patterns in large  amounts of data  and  identify underlying patterns. I believe  that  this paradigm change in programming is as fundamental as the introduction of digital  computers. This will transform many industries where knowledge work  is needed – just  like the 3rd Industrial Revolution changed manual work. 

The second trend I want  to talk about is the  opportunity for new leadership to emerge. If you look of the list of companies in the  U.S. with  the  biggest market capitalization, these are mainly  in the  IT industry. All these are  in existence for less than 50 years.  So new industry leadership has emerged. 

Similarly, U.S. was about 2% of world’s GDP in 1900s whereas today  it is about 20% of the  world’s  GDP. In the  first  half of the 20th century, U.S led the world in factory based  repetitive manufacturing, increasing productivity through the  use  of technology and  management techniques. In the second half, U.S. dominated the  world   in  digital  computing. So riding these trends, a country can take  the leadership in economic terms. In the second half of 20th  century, China  accelerated its GDP growth on top of being  the world’s  factory. China  is the second largest economy in the world  today.

I believe  that  disruptive technologies will transform all industries and  give  India  an  opportunity to  accelerate its GDP growth and  become 2nd or 3rd biggest economy in the world.  Some of firms  can become the largest in their sectors. As a few of IT services companies have demonstrated in the last 45 years. 

There is tremendous wealth to  be  made in  India  as  India grows  to USD 5 trillion or USD 10 trillion economy. India  is already the  3rd best  place  for entrepreneurs and  start-ups. We have  100+ unicorns – companies whose  market cap  is more than USD 1 billion.  Some of these companies will have to  run   the   marathon  and   become  global   multinationals leading their industries. 

The third trend is the India Opportunity. India is transitioning to  a  developed economy in  the  next  few  years.   But  what kind  India will we create? I hope  that  we will create a better india  and  a better world.  One that  is sustainable, equitable, affordable and  accessible. These  are the  problems humanity is facing  today.  India  can  be the  laboratory of the  world  to create these new developmental models. Let me give you couple of examples. When Covid struck the world,  U.S. came out with a vaccine to create immunity against these viruses in record time,  especially using  mRNA technology. We created these vaccines in record time  using  the  best  of science and innovation. These  vaccines costed USD 30 a dose  and would probably be affordable to the  top  10% of the  world.  Imagine what it would have costed India to vaccinate a majority of the eligible population, estimated to be 800 million. It would have cost India USD 48 billion assuming 2 doses  per person . Then India  came  out with  our  own vaccines which  were  priced at USD 3 per  dose.  And it costed us 1/10th cost,  approximately USD 5 billion. 

In fintech, we have created the payment infrastructure built on Aadhaar and UPI. One can transfer money instantaneously with  almost zero  cost  by just  knowing the  other person’s telephone number or UPI code. With this, 80% of Indian adult population is able to use digital  financial transactions to buy products where as less than 15% own credit or debit  cards. 

In telecom, India  has one of the  best  telecom infrastructure covering most of the country. In fact, we were able to function during Covid because of the  telecom infrastructure. Where else in the world would you get to make unlimited calls, send messages and consume 1GB of data per day costing just H300 per  month. I can  go on.  India  provides the  opportunity to create new business models that works for the 7 billion people of the world  rather than the top 10% of world’s  population.

This  is why I believe  that  the  next  30 years  are  going  to be exciting and could transform India to be a leading, developed nation. And you have  the  opportunity to  create this  better India.  Identify companies that  are  working to  create disruptive technologies or  business models. That  are  fast growing. Work for them or better yet, start these businesses. This is what  I would  call identifying large  waves  and  riding the wave. 

I wish each one of you the very best wishes. May the force  be with you. 

Convocation Address by the Guest of Honour
12 November 2022

Dr. Ashish Lele

Dr. Ashish Lele

Director, National Chemical Laboratory, Pune

Guest of Honour, 8th Convocation, IIT Jodhpur

 

Choose what is right, not what is easy! 

Dr. R. Chidambaram, Chairman, Board  of Governors, IIT Jodhpur, and  former Principal Scientific Advisor  to  the Government;   Padmabhushan   Dr.   Kris   Gopalakrishnan, Co-founder  Infosys,   and   President,  Infosys   Science Foundation; Prof. Santanu Chaudhury, Director IIT-Jodhpur; Distinguished Members of the Board of Governors; Members of  Senate; Distinguished Deans,   Faculty  and  Admin.  Staff of IIT-Jodhpur; proud Parents and  my  dear  graduating students. 

Namaskar and Very Good Evening to all of you! 

It is my privilege and honour to be part of the 8th convocation of  IIT-Jodhpur,  an   important  milestone  for   this   young member of the IIT family. 

It was  one  of those busy  days  in office when  I received the invitation sent  by Director IIT-Jodhpur to  be  the  Guest  of Honour at this  function, and  I accepted it without really thinking about what  I was  getting into.  It was  only when  I started writing this  address that  I realised how ill-prepared I was! 

I did not have any personal experience to draw upon  because I had  missed both  my convocations! I could  not  attend the first  convocation in the  University of Mumbai  because I had already travelled to the  US to embark on my PhD program.

And I missed the  second convocation in  the  University of Delaware in the  US because I had  already returned to India to take up my first job! 

So, I realised that I had not received any sagacious advice from the  guest  of honours in my convocations. But when  I spoke to a few of my friends who had attended those events, almost everybody told me that  they did not remember a single word of those speeches. I immediately felt relieved knowing that  I am unlikely to be held responsible for affecting your careers even if I choose to give you preposterous sounding advice. 

But let me start by congratulating all the graduating students for  achieving this  important milestone in  your  life.  I also want  to  congratulate your  parents for  giving  this  priceless gift of education to you. 

Dear  Graduands, today  you will be armed with  new  wings, which will enable you to take your first flight in the real world. Your education gives you the power to seize many wonderful opportunities that  await  you.  So the  only  real suggestion I want to give you today is to be always mindful of two of Albus Dumbledore’s  famous dialogues in the  Harry Potter series where he says,  and  I quote:  “Soon you will have  the  choice between what  is right and  what  is easy.  It is the  choice  we make that  decides who we are, far more than our abilities”. 

These  may sound non-trivial remarks. For argument’s sake, one  may  even  invoke  philosophy to  claim  that  there is no absolute right and  wrong, or no absolute easy and  difficult. While  that   may  very  well  be  the  case,  my  own  personal experience suggests that  if we follow our  heart and  stick  to our  convictions, the choice  of doing  the ‘right thing’ instead of the ‘easy thing’ is after  all not so difficult.  So in my speech today,  I would  like to recount some  of my own personal experiences. 

I grew up in a middle-class Maharashtrian family that valued education, morality, love, humility, arts  and nationalism. My father worked hard to earn a living and  my mother did odd tuitions to add to the  monthly income. While my school  was no  different than any  other typical  institution, it did  have decent laboratories and  a make-shift library. I read my first Jules  Verne  novels  borrowed from  the  Godrej  Almirahs of the  library. A lot of my ‘out-of-school’ education happened, thanks to  a large  group of  friends with  whom  I went  on many  trekking expeditions in the  Western Ghats,  organised sports camps and  built  mud  castles in  Diwali.  My lessons in nationalism came  not  from  textbooks but  from  listening to  captivating lectures and  reading inspiring books  on  the history of Shivaji and the other Maratha kings. 

At the end of my higher secondary (class 12) education, I had acquired sufficient marks to choose a career in medicine or engineering and I had to make my first career choice. Getting diverse exposure to different professions at an impressionable age can have  a great influence on one’s choices. My biology classes and  labs  at that  time  unfortunately did  not  expose

me  to the  many  interesting aspects of biology.  A career in medicine seemed limited to cutting, stitching and  fixing people! I did not have the appetite for it, although I was aware that  a doctor’s profession can  be financially very lucrative. On the other hand, my father, who is a civil engineer, showed me exciting engineering projects. I remember visiting a sugar factory, a one-of-a-kind  mechanised winery and  Mumbai’s Jawaharlal Nehru Port which was then under construction. 

Ever since,  I have always been  enamoured by large  scale ambitious projects. And so, pursuing a career in engineering seemed like  the  right thing  to  do  at  that  time,  and  I have never repented that  decision. A take-home message to the graduating students and  to IIT-Jodhpur is to actively  seek/ enable as many internship options between semesters as you can. 

I ended up getting admitted into  the University of Mumbai’s Department of Chemical Engineering without having  much idea of this branch of engineering. I still distinctly remember the very first lecture given by one of the  doyens of chemical engineering, Prof.  MM Sharma, who  by the  way hails  from Jodhpur.  He  gave  us  a 30,000 ft overview of the  chemical industry, its enormous contributions to global economy, and in particular to India’s strides in agriculture, healthcare and energy. This was followed  by a visit to RCF, a large  fertiliser complex in Mumbai.  I immediately knew that  I had made the right career choice! It is an undeniable truth that  the  choice of one’s profession is often influenced by a good teacher. The second take-home message for  the  graduands here is that you  should seek  a good  teacher. Because  as  Bharat  Ratna APJ Abdul  Kalam  has  said,  a good  teacher can  “shape  the character, calibre and future of an individual”! 

By the  time  I completed my third year  of chemical engineering, I had  secured admission and  scholarship to a few universities in the  US. In those days,  going  to the  US to obtain a higher degree was kind  of the  norm for engineers. For  most  students the  real motive  was  to  “settle  down”  in a  developed country with  a  cosy  job.  I was  never allured by this  goal  for several reasons. I of course wanted to stay closer to  my ageing  parents. But I was  also  mindful of the fact that  my entire B.E. degree had  costed me a meagre Rs.

800/-, whereas the  quality  of education that  I had  received was absolutely invaluable! I knew even then that there are no free lunches, which  meant that  India had practically paid for my education! This sense of gratitude was definitely a major factor in my decision to return to India. All of my close friends had however chosen otherwise. Finding a job in the US might have been  relatively easy given the fact that my PhD research was sponsored by a large  MNC and  my research had  led to some  interested patents on nanomaterials of biodegradable polymers. But I wanted to  make  the  ‘right  choice’,  not  the ‘easy one’. 

At that time, call it fate or luck, I had a chance encounter with Dr.  RA Mashelkar, the  then Director of the  CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory who happened to be on sabbatical in my department during my second year in the  US. The inspiring discussions with him cemented my decision to return. It was further buttressed when  I visited  the  CSIR-NCL  during a summer trip  to India.  I saw  in this  laboratory a wonderful opportunity to not  only do good  science but  also  translate it into  relevant technologies. Finally,  I was  also  incredibly fortunate to have got a life partner who was equally desirous of  building a  career in  India.  This  sealed the  deal  and  I returned within a month of defending my PhD thesis. I was of course fortunate that  CSIR-NCL thought I was good enough to join the laboratory. 

So my third message to all of you is that  if you are  on  the verge  of  deciding between a  right choice   versus an  easy choice,  check  if the  universe is sending you  any  signals!  I don’t  believe  in fate  or luck, but  as Denzel  Washington said “Luck  is  when   an  opportunity  comes along  and  you  are prepared for it!” 

I have  spent the  past   27 years   in  CSIR-NCL  working on government salary  and within the confines of a bureaucratic machinery. And yet I am very proud to say that  these have been  my most  fulfilling  years  of professional life. I have had the  freedom to do research in my area  of choice  and  work with  some  of the  brightest young  students, who  motivated me  to stay sharp. I have  also had  the  good  fortune to work with many thought leaders, who have influenced the science and  technology landscape of India.  Collaborating with them has enriched my life in multiple dimensions. They challenged me to perform better than my capabilities. They showed me new paths. They taught me the art of leadership. 

In  my first  15 years  at  CSIR-NCL,  I built  a research group in the  areas of thermodynamics and  rheology of polymeric materials. I established a state-of-the-art laboratory, published my research in  good  journals, mentored and graduated remarkable students and  worked closely with industry on  many   projects.  The  work   earned  me   many laurels. And while  all this  looked  like the  well-trodden path for  success, I was  not  satisfied not  because I wanted more of the  same  but  because none  of my work  till then had  the potential to  create large  impact for  India.  This  uneasiness forced me to get out of a comfort zone. 

In the  early  2000s, CSIR had  embarked on a risky  program on developing hydrogen technologies. Those  were  the  days when  nobody in  India  believed in hydrogen as  a potential clean  energy vector. But visionaries in laboratories like NCL foresaw the  need   for  developing indigenous  technologies over the  next  15-20 years.  How true they were! I bought into their vision,  and  I was ready to make  my next  ‘right’ choice which  was  to  stop  all my research so  far  that  had  fetched me many  laurels and  jump  into  an area  about which  I knew nothing. The adventure was fraught with risks:  technologies like  fuel  cells   require  multiple technical expertise. This means that  large  teams have  to  be  created, and  the  leader has to manage many highly creative people. The project had to be funded continuously for 10-15 years which was not easy especially when  there is no technology pull from the market. And  finally,  there was  always  the  possibility that  nothing would  come  out  of the  15 years  of hard work!  But the  thrill of taking up such  a challenge was enticing, and  was exactly the  kind  of  opportunity that   I was  seeking. Fast  forward to  2021, and  today  India  has  recognized the  importance  of green hydrogen. Our  work  has  put  CSIR at the  forefront of the  indigenous technology developers for fuel cells and electrolyzers. Inaugurating India’s first  indigenous fuel cell bus  created through a CSIR-industrycollaboration has  not only been  in some  sense a culmination of many years  of hard work,  but also the harbinger of new mission programs along the entire hydrogen value chain. 

Therefore,  my   fourth  advice   to   graduating  students  is never to shy away from  facing  challenges and  taking risks. Take risks  especially when  you are  younger, courageous, articulate, and  have  an  insatiable appetite for  success. A good mantra to bear in mind  is to ‘fail quick’ so that you may succeed in the long run. 

CSIR-NCL  taught me  many   more  things. For  instance,  I learnt that  there is nothing like basic  research and  applied research. These  distinctions are  artificial and  unnecessary. Instead, CSIR-NCL gave me the opportunity to embark on a journey of learning, doing  and  delivering, which  integrates education, research, innovation and  entrepreneurship. Education disseminates known knowledge, research creates new knowledge, innovation translates research into solutions and   entrepreneurship takes   the  solutions to  the  market. I am  delighted to  see  that  IIT Jodhpur  is creating such  an integrated ecosystem through its  many  degree courses, research projects and  the  Technology Innovation Hub. This is a good start for a relatively young  institution, and  as Plato said “a work begun well is half done!” 

I would  like  to  suggest to  IIT-Jodhpur to  find  new  ways to   integrate  the   various  disciplines  and   train  students to  become  ‘solution engineers’ rather  than  mechanical, EE, civil or chemical engineers. Our  planet is facing  an existential crises of severe magnitude in the form  of climate change and  pollution thanks to the  injudicious use  of non- renewable energy and materials to fuel our greed, the rise of antimicrobial resistant pathogens caused by indiscriminate use  of agrochemicals, rapid depletion of water resources, and  so on. At the  same  time,  we need  to keep  in mind  the emergence of  new  and   powerful  technological  platforms such  as; Gene-editing, AI/ML and  brain-machine interface which  have  the  potential to unlock new ways to solving  the complex problems in hitherto unimaginable ways. I am happy to see  that  IIT-Jodhpur has  UG & PG programs in Artificial Intelligence and  Data  Science, Bioengineering and  Medical Technology, which  I understand is a Unique  Joint Program with AIIMS, Jodhpur). But beyond our  usual  curriculum, we must prepare our students with 10 important skills: solution engineering, creativity, critical thinking, collaborations, people  management,  emotional  intelligence,  judgement and  decision making, service orientation, negotiation and cognitive flexibility.

So my fifth suggestion in this talk is for the institute to adopt an innovative, integrated, apprenticeship-  like approach to train our engineers to solve problems, and  also pick up new skills that  go beyond the usual  classroom lessons. 

Finally, I would like to end my speech by telling the graduating students to remember five useful  mantras that  I have learnt from  Dr. Mashelkar: 

(1) Always remember the  3Ps – purpose, perseverance and passion. Be brave  enough to live the life of your  dreams according to your vision  and  purpose instead of the expectations and  opinions of others. Don’t quit,  because quitters are never winners! Remember that people with great passion can make the impossible happen. 

(2) While  the  beginning of your  life  is  not  in  your  hands, where you end  up with  is! Therefore, keep  your  aspirations very high. 

(3) Work  hard because there are  no  shortcuts to  success, which  in itself is a continuous pursuit. 

(4) Be part of a solution, not of a problem. If you can’t find a way, create a new  path.  If doors don’t  open  for you, create new doors. 

(5) Remember that  human endurance, human achievement, and  human  imagination are  all  boundless. The  only  real limits  are the self-imposed ones. 

I wish you all the very best  in your life. I have no doubt that you will ascend the  limitless ladder of excellence and  bring glory to yourself, to your  family,  your  alma  mater and  your country.

Thank  you, Jai Hind and God Bless!

Foundation Day Speech by Chief Guest
(2nd August 2022)

Prof. Uday B. Desai

Prof. Uday B. Desai
Former Director, IIT Hyderabad

Good  afternoon, everyone. Thank  you  very  much for  your patience in getting this  started. Many many  congratulations on  the  15th  Foundation Day and  on  completing 14 years.  I think it’s a fantastic achievement. There are  distinguished members on the  dais  and  I won’t  spell  out  all their names, which  is the  normal protocol that  we follow in India.  I am going to skip that  and  I hope  they will not mind.  When I saw the presentation made by Professor Chaudhury, Since he has taken charge as Director, the  growth has been  absolutely phenomenal. I think IIT Jodhpur  has  gone  ahead by leaps and  bounds from  the  time  before he  joined  and  the  time after  he took  charge and  the  work  that  he has  done.  Many, many congratulations to you, Santanu. I think it’s an amazing piece  of work  that  you have  done.  At the  same  time,  I’d like to congratulate the faculty and students because no Director alone  can do anything. I think he needs full cooperation and full support from  both  the  faculty  as well  as the  students. So once  again,  clap for yourself, everybody. Many, many congratulations to all of you. I think it’s an amazing piece  of work. I think this is required. 

I’m just  making a little  digression. When  we started, there were  many  naysayers, asking,  ‘Why do we need  new  IITs?’ You  know  what  I mean. ‘Five are  okay,  we  will  dilute the standard, blah,  blah,  blah’.   Santanu would  remember that debate very well. Many discussions occurred, including with the  old  alumni members who  were  there. But  I think this decision has  served well. It takes  time.  We had  to compete against an established brand. Many of the IITs, which started in 2008,  started in smaller places  like Jodhpur. It’s not  that easy to compete with the established five [IITs], and then, of course, the  seven.  But we have  come  a long way and  shown that,  yes, it can be done. The same  quality can be maintained and  the  same  DNA is there in principle. It just takes  a while for the  newer IITs to mature, grow  up and  stand shoulder- to-shoulder with  the  old  IITs. Also, the  younger IITs,  as  I would like to refer to them, are giving competition to the old IITs. It’s very difficult  to decide, on a foundation day about what  to  talk  about, and  whether to  give a Foundation day celebratory thing.  I didn’t want to make  it a very serious talk or serious discussion on this  or that  research, etc, which  is meant for a different forum or stage, in my opinion. So I had a brief chat with your Director, and I thought I’ll just talk about the  joy of research, and  I’ll tell you why. Then  he said,  “Adda little bit on institution-building”. So I’m going to talk about institution-building perhaps from  a  different perspective, and hopefully other than what is normally talked about.

 All of you  are  researchers and  so  am  I. To some  extent,  I am  preaching to  the  choir.   Everybody does  research out here. The faculty  are  doing  research, the  students are  doing research. But I want  to reinforce this  (and this  is important to  me),  simply   because, if  you  look  at  great institutions in  the  world,  they  are  known for  their research. MIT and Stanford, for  example, are  fundamentally known for  their research. Their  undergraduate education is not  something that  is  usually  craved. Even  if you  talk  to  your  colleagues in  the   US, whose   children went   to  school,   graduated or have  done  lots  of things, nobody is sad  that  they  didn’t  get into  Stanford or  something for  their UG education. While there are  many  opportunities for UG education, Stanford fundamentally is known for its research. I’m just taking Stanford as a metaphor. If you look at the IIT system also, we were,  predominantly, a teaching Institute. When I came back from  the  US in 1986, at IIT Bombay, I remember that  we had almost 80% (or maybe  even  more)  undergraduate students. There were   about 15  - 20% postgraduate students, PhDs plus,  and  there was  one  hostel which   essentially housed everybody. In contrast, there were  multiple hostels for the undergraduates. It was a conscious decision that  all the IITs took at that  point.  I was involved  more with IIT Bombay and [Prof.] Santanu was at IIT Delhi. We knew we needed to make a shift. So, somewhere in the 90s, that  process started. While it was a conscious decision, it was also not  an easy thing  to do when we were very comfortable. Things were  moving well and  we had  to  move  out  of our  comfort zone  by making a big shift. Today, if we look at most  IITs (at least  the old IITs), the  ratio  is almost 50-50. When I was at IIT Hyderabad, and maybe  even  now, we had  around 55% postgraduate and  45% undergraduate students. So the  research focus  became part and parcel of what you would call an IIT. That has given us an international reputation besides what the alumni have done. So, this is a point that  I wanted to get across.

 I also want to bring up a little bit about failures and successes. Normally, we only talk about success. Very few people stand and  talk about failures. There are  many  efforts, even valiant efforts that  I made (and  I’ll talk  about a couple of them), which are very good, but they didn’t leave a mark. Do indulge me, and let’s go for a small joyride. 

First, let’s take the example of the famous physicist Freeman Dyson.  He’s more famous for not  getting the  Nobel Prize.  If you talk to any physicist, they’ll say he should have gotten it, but unfortunately, for whatever reason, even the Nobel Prize has its dynamics. One of the things that he said, which I like is,

‘Dissent is the soul of science’. I would like to paraphrase this as “Dissent is the soul of research”. Dissent is very important. Why do I say this?  By and  large,  India  is a very conformist society.  Just imagine if the  collector of Jodhpur walked  into the  room right now.  All of us  would  stand up.  But  if you look at the collective salary  or his age, it would  be much less than the  people sitting on the  dais  and  perhaps, even  many in  the  audience and  many  faculty  here. This  is something which  doesn’t happen elsewhere. I’ve not seen  it in Japan or elsewhere. The fact that we are a very conformist society has thwarted, in my opinion, our  creativity. This is something  I emphasize everywhere. We don’t like dissent, you know,  and we sort  of construe dissent as being disrespectful. That’s not the  case.  I disagree with  you. That’s  it. That  doesn’t mean I disrespect you. We have  to accept that.  This  is something that  was  perhaps there in our  civilization at one  time.  But, somewhere, along the way, it kind  of vanished. And such behaviour  is  a  lot  more  common today.   We  sometimes eulogize it in a sense. That’s what  it is. But I think dissent is very critical. Otherwise, you cannot have  creative thoughts. Any creative thought you pick, anything revolutionary in the history of science and  the  history of technology, has  always challenged what  existed, right, maybe,  from  the  days of Copernicus, Galileo and others. 

What I’ll do is just tell stories and this is one story I like a lot. I came across this many years ago. Most of us have seen Velcro. I’m almost certain that  practically everybody has something in  their pocketbook or  in  their backpack, which  has  some Velcro in it. It is so ubiquitous today. How did it all start? It is a great example of innovation. This gentleman, [George  de] Mestral, used  to go hunting. All of us, who have gone hiking in the  woods,  know  of this  round ball which  sticks  to your clothes when  you  walk  around. Most  of us,  sort  of, pull  it out,  get  irritated and  consider it a nuisance. It ruins pants or shirts etc. Sometimes it can even stick to the hair  of your hand if you tend to be a little  hairy.  Mestral started looking at it and decided to investigate why this is sticking to me. He did a simple microscopic analysis. This is nothing very fancy. Anybody, any undergraduate or even high school  kid, can do it in school. Mestral found these hooks out there. This is what got him  the  idea  and  he  developed what  we call ‘Velcro’.  It took  him  10 years  to  convert the  idea  into  a product. Now the lesson. It takes  time.  You may get an idea, but it requires a lot of perseverance to  get  it into  a product. He patented it after  that.  Patents are  expensive, you’ve to pay royalties, so nothing much happened. The patent expired in 1978. And boom!  Taiwan,  China,  and  South  Korea  flooded the  market with  Velcro.  Today,  we don’t  even  bother about the  cost  of Velcro. You can  buy a whole  roll of Velcro,  cut  it and  use  it however you want.  This is a small  joke that  Mestral used  to make.  In his  companies, if any employee were  to ask  for  a two-week hunting holiday,  they  would  be  permitted.  After all, who knows, they could  come  back with an innovation.

The other story, which I like to talk about a lot, is the Tata Nano. This is from India. I am very proud of this, though this is one of the innovations which failed in the market. And the reason I’m proud of it is because of a friend, Venkatesh Prasad, who works for the Ford Motor Company in the US. He used  to tell me that  during the time Tata Nano was being  developed, the buzz around it was such that there was hardly any meeting at Ford  Motor  Company in the  US where they did not mention it. They were  all worried as to what  this Tata Nano would  do to the auto  industry. So, in a sense, Tata did shake  it up. The US industry, the  Japanese industry, everybody was worried. Of course, there are  multiple reasons why the  Nano did not work  and  I’m not  going  to get into  them. Of course, Tata is a very  magnanimous man.  And he  accepted the  marketing issues. I’m sure there’s a lot more than marketing that  came into  the picture. And I’ll come  to that  marketing component a little  later. 36 international patents were  filed  and  there was a lot of R&D that  went  into  it. Two things are important here. One is thinking out of the box and having  the courage. I mean, Tata must have lost 1000s  of crores. This must have been  at least  1000 crore plus  project, maybe  more. But Tata had that  guts.How many industrialists in the country today have that  guts? The only person I can think of, who comes close, is my friend in Hyderabad, Krishna Ella who developed Covaxin. You must have read about Covaxin.  I always tell him,  “Look, whatever happened, I’m proud of it. You had  the  courage to say I will invest  money and  develop a vaccine  just like anybody else in the  world”.  We are  among the  five countries, I think, in the world  to develop a vaccine.  There are  all kinds  of pressures because of which  Covaxin  didn’t  become as popular as, say, AstraZeneca or  Pfizer,  etc.  But  this  is  something which  I like, and this  is what  I want  to get across to you. Besides  not having  a culture of dissent, we don’t have the  courage to try something new. We have lost that  somewhere along the line. When we review proposals, we see that  most  people do what they  know  because they  are  sure that  there is an  answer. Unfortunately, that  cannot be the  case. You cannot just keep on working on these things. 

How can I not mention the other thing  I like, especially now that  I’m in Rajasthan? Of course, this  is the Jaipur foot. How many  of you here have  ever  been  to the  Jaipur foot factory? Anybody? You should visit it sometime. One of the  most humbling experiences in my life was visiting  it. I had not originally planned on going there. I had gone to NIT Jaipur or whatever. (All NITs have these long names in front of them, which  I can  never remember and  I mix  them up).  Luckily, everything got over  quickly.  Then  I said,  “Hey, I need  to go see the Jaipur foot factory”.  I had a few hours on hand before the flight and I went  there. Mr Mehta, who started the whole thing, was traveling. He was nice enough to call me and  say “Look, Prof. Desai, I cannot meet  you”. I was humbled by his phone call. First of all, if you look at the Jaipur foot factory, it resembles a fifties  or sixties  movie.  Many out here probably may  remember them…  I mean, dirty,  sooty,  heat,  dust  all over the place. But the most amazing experience of mine was meeting this  guy. I mean, I didn’t  even know him.  He was a little  stocky  guy, who  came  up to my shoulder. He touched my shoulder. He didn’t  talk  to me  but  he  indicated that  he wanted to  show  me  something. After  sort  of asking  me  to wait there, he ran  all the way across from  that  corner. Then he ran  back.  I said,  “Theek  hai yaar,  I mean, everybody can do that,  you know”. Then  the  amazing part. He sat down  on a chair  and  removed the  Jaipur foot that  he had  on each  of his legs. Both were  amputated. The Jaipur foot gave that  guy the  ability  to actually run.  Can you imagine that?  For a sort of a minute or so, I was just stunned when  he took those two feet off, you know. And then he looks at me and smiles. I said, “Wow”. Then,  like a typical  IIT Professor or an IIT engineer, I started to tell  the  people at the  Jaipur foot  factory, “Why don’t you do this  using  3D printing? You know,  use titanium blah, blah, blah….” I was told, “Sir, we’re willing to do all that, but  can  you make  this  Jaipur foot  for  about 2000  rupees?” They couldn’t afford  3D printing. Another thing  that  I found out was that  they  never say no to anybody.. Anybody  in the country can  write a small  postcard to  them or  an  inland letter and  then they  can  go there. You will be treated, even though it may not be done immediately. It’s an amazing thing that  they  do from  end  to end.  You go there, they  do all the measurements, find out what the requirement is and develop the Jaipur foot for you. Everything is designed. They do all the physiotherapy and  they train you so that  a guy can run, as I shared. In the end, since  a lot of the recipients are poor,  they are  given  a tea-making kit  (except  for  the  milk,  sugar and tea) if they want  it. The gas is not there, of course. You have to get your  own fuel. The idea was that  when  the  guy leaves the Jaipur foot factory and gets his Jaipur foot, he was able to make  a living for himself. At least he will set up a tea shop  in some  corner. All of us drink tea and  you can’t quite  make  a loss. If you have a small tea stall, you may not become super rich, but you can manage. To me, this is a great innovation. A lot can be learned from  this. I have a cutting of that.  I picked up a cross-section and  said,  “Look, I’m taking it with  me”. I had it in my office. It’s still there.. 

The  other thing  I’ll talk  about is Smart Agriculture. This  is an interesting story.  I’m not  going  to talk  about the  details of it. We did this  in 2006-2007. Those  days, they were  called motes. Today you call it IoT! There are IoT centres all over the country. Okay,  everybody has  an  IoT centre wherever they go. Those guys will call them the crossbow motes. They were about $ 240 to  $250. We set  up  this  whole  wireless sensor network for precision agriculture. This was for Sula Wines. So I keep  joking  that  I never had  problems getting students for this  one  particular project. We had  solar  panels. We talk about it now but this was way back, almost 14 years  ago. And it worked very well, in the sense everything was working. We did on-the-air programming. So, from  IIT Bombay, we were programming what was happening in Sula wines. Everything worked.  The   sensors  worked through  the   monsoons  of Nashik.   Anybody  who’s  been   to  Nashik   or  even  Bombay knows  what  kind  of rain  we have.  In  that  rain,  it worked. No leakage  of water anywhere. So we were  all thrilled. Wewent  with  all these measurements and  we approached  Mr Agarwal, who was a Managing Director. Luckily, Mr Samant, who  owns  Sula wines,  had  given  us a small  plot  (maybe  an acre)  and  he said,  “You do whatever you want.  You can  put your  sensors, you can  do whatever”. It was  so nice  of him, especially because really, not many people come forward like this. So when  we went to Mr Agarwal, who was the Managing Director and  showed him what  we had, he looked  at us first and then he smiled, asking  “So what  do I do with this?”. This was  something that  engineers got  excited about, students got excited about, and  faculty got excited about. Even the funders were   excited…Aha,   success!   Then   this   guy  said, “What do I do with  it?” So I looked  at him  and  said,  “Look, this is all data.  Can’t you do something?” He said, “What can you tell me?” So then I replied, “What do you want?”.  So he told  me,” Look, I have two major problems. I have  powdery mildew and  downy  mildew. These  are  two  diseases which affect my vineyards or the  grapes. Can you predict that? Because  currently, what  I do is have a person walking  in the vineyards during the  mildew season. The moment he sees  a little  bit of the  mildew developing, they  start spraying.” He went on,” I can minimise my spraying if I know ahead of time and if you can predict it”. So we said,’ “Okay, let’s try”. We had all the  data,  I had  people. In fact,  there was  Ipsita.  I think she  did  a PhD from  IIT Kharagpur in agriculture. She was a postdoc with  me.  Professor Saha  was  from  food  science. And so we had  a team  which  had  everybody, including an electrical engineer who did all this kind of stuff, data analysis, algorithms etc. So we worked on it and we came  up with the algorithm. We showed that,  yes, we can  do a good  amount of prediction. Okay, everything works. We were,  again,  very happy.  Again, we went  back  to him.”Ye aapka  prediction ho gaya, dekhiye. This is there, why don’t you use  it?” Then  he looks  at me  and  says,  “Okay, what’s  the  cost?”  I said,  “You need  roughly about, you know,  in 10-metre squares, at least one mote,  and each mote  will cost $250 plus all the other peripherals of Wi-Fi, blah, blah, blah”. In those days, we had GPRS. We didn’t  have  4G. So you had  to  pay for  the  GPRS. It was pretty expensive. Nowadays, it is much cheaper. And then he looks at me and says, “You know, Professor Desai, if I did what you asked me to do, nobody will ever buy my wine, it will be so expensive”. So again,  the  project, kind  of, went. This was one of those things that  we thought was a success. We published several papers, got the  citation, whatever you say, everything. But finally,  deep  down,  I felt that  I had  not completed it. Something got missed out.  So this  was one  of those nice  stories where we went  end-to-end. We talked to the  user  and  we were  in touch with  them. Okay, of course, we had grand tours of the Sula vineyards, and  of course, the winery that they had, how they brew,  etc, etc. It’s very easy to say, “I have a prototype and boom,  boom,  boom, we can have Band Baaja Baraat”. It doesn’t work, you know. There are a lot of complications required from  that  point till you come  up with something which you and I, people like us, can use. This is one big lesson! 

Recently, this  project has  been  going  on. I have  sat throughso many committees and funded and approved projects, and reviewed projects. Of course, things kept  changing. GPRS became 3G, 3G became 4G. Then  as  opposed to  collecting data  like  this,  we  said,  Okay,  we’ll get  drones and  collect data.  We got satellite data  into  the  picture. So I mean, this work  still  goes  on.  Now I’m involved  with  ICRA. So I can see  proposals out  there. A lot of work  is going  on. There is this  project that  we just  concluded. We partly didn’t  finish it.  This  was  a  joint  project with  the  University of  Tokyo, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Bombay,  Telangana state Agriculture University and IIIT Hyderabad. But one of the big things was out here, which  we could  not  quite  complete. I wish we had got an extension to see what you do with the genomics, which was  a big part. If you look at it here, I’m not  going  to read everything. Genomics and  phenomics were  big phenomics. We did phenomics. We used AI algorithms. Once you have the data,  all of us can do phenomics. Genomics was tricky.  Balaji and  Marathe, who are  from  the Agricultural University, and Professor Ninomiya san, who himself is an agriculturalist, did a lot of genomics work.  And our  idea was to create hybrids. Remember, you  know,  we  sort  of take  one  plant, connect it and  then something else  comes up. We say, aha,  this  is a high-yielding  variety. So,  the   eventual idea  was  whether we could  come  up  with  some  techniques for  a robust and highlighting  variety for  semi-arid  regions. Rajasthan can be classified as semi-arid, as can be the Hyderabad area, Telangana etc. So that  was the  main  target. Our idea was to do this experimentation that we do in the field. It takes years and  years  to come  up  with  a good  hybrid. Using  genomics and  computer simulations, we got partial success. We could not  do much. I mean, funding was  an  issue  and  we had  to do all this  genomic sequencing. But without Ninomiya san’s support, we could  not have done  it. So I think a lot more still has to be done  in this broad area  of precision agriculture. 

This  is  another interesting thing.   I have  not  talked much about it to anybody. Along with  my former student, Mustafa Doctor, (who has  an  interesting name and  who  became Dr Mustafa  Doctor when  he got his PhD from  us), my colleague, Professor Merchant, and  I, three of us, were  involved.  This was  not  his  PhD  work,  this  is the  additional work  that  he did  in some  sense at his home.  Most people find  it hard to believe.  So what  you see out here, is roughly a 3-ton box. In October 2016, we installed it in one of the substations, 11 kVa, substation in IIT Hyderabad. I wish  I’d put  it in the  33 kVa substation which  was the  main  one. I was a little  tentative, I should have trusted my research a lot more than I did. I said “Let’s try with 11 KV; if something goes wrong, then only that segment would  be  affected”. It serves the  hostel area.  And what  does  it do?  If you  see  this  power cable,  this  is the  11 KVa cable which  then goes to the switches and transformers that  is out here, from  this  side here. It just goes through the sleeves out where you see these metal things. That is where all the magic lies. So, there are big sleeves with all kinds of alloys and  very complex metals, which  are  alloys, which  are  there. We just pass it through it. And as an experiment, we had a 100 Mbps kind of line going into it. Now what happens is because this is an external line which  goes into it, and because of the cost consideration, we could  have put  one Gigabit fiber also or 10 Gig fiber.  It’s not  an issue,  no innovation in it. So, this is what  we put.  As a result, what  happens is that  every  plug point in the whole hostel area had Internet access. 

So the  whole  idea  out  here (which  I remember discussing with  Mustafa  when  this  thing  started) was,  ‘Why do we lay separate infrastructure for every new technology?’. Wired telephony  with   separate  infrastructure;  electrical cables with  separate infrastructure; now optical  cables  are  all over the  place.  As you can  see  wherever you go, Delhi,  Bombay, Calcutta, Bangalore, wherever you  are,  the  electrical guys first will come  and  dig it up and  put some  cabling.  Then  the telephone guys  will  come.  Of course, telephony has  gone down  quite  a bit now because nobody has  wired telephony. Then  the  optical  guys will come.  Sometimes the  Airtel guys will dig it up or the  BSNL guys will dig it up or the  Jio guys will dig it up. Whole roads are  permanently dug up. Okay, it seems as if there is nothing you can do. Our idea was that the most  extensive infrastructure in the world  are power cables. You look it up in any city anywhere. Why not?  Why can’t we take  that  one infrastructure and  make  that  the  fundamental transport layer  and  transmit everything on  it? This  is not powerline communication by the  way. What  we  are  doing, what  happens in  this  box,  is something that  I can’t  reveal because we  have  not  even  patented it.  It’s like  the  Coca- Cola secret. It basically takes  the bits which  are coming from here, it engulfs those bits  in the  magnetic field. Because  of the magnetic field, the bits can cross over the transformers. Those  who are  in communication might know  of something called PLC Power line communication. Unfortunately, power line   communication  could   not   go   across  transformers. You  get  stuck  because we were  using  the  electric field  out there to encode it, which  is traditional communication encoding. Here  we were  able  to do it in the  magnetic field. So technically now, I can take a box like this, maybe  a slightly modified box or a bigger box. if you have a main power station which  is supplying the  city of Jodhpur, I can put  up this  box in  that  particular power station. It can  have  three phases, no problem. This also has three phases. Then  you can have, maybe  say, 10 to 100 gigabits per second lines and an optical line going into  it. Every plug point in the city of Jodhpur will have  internet access. There is a small  thing, which  I don’t have out here. It looks like your Good-Knight. You plug it in. It has a Wi-Fi connection. So, basically,  you first  convert the bits  which  are  there in a small  magnetometer and  that  will convert it back to the  electric part. Once  it’s electric, it’s all traditional, you  know,  there’s  nothing new  to  be  done.  Of course, we need to just manufacture it, and you can have Wi- Fi access out here. So, in some  sense, you literally carry your internet with  you,  wherever you  go, similar to  how  we  do with a cell phone today, which is the 4G part of it. But there is no additional infrastructure. Even the 4G can be easily put up on every lamppost. If there is a power line, you can put 4G out here, there is no problem in this particular part. Now, this is a very expensive proposition. The investment that  we were looking for was about 100 billion dollars. We tried everything. People  in the  Middle  East,  the  Government and  it’s a long story.  So I’ll cut it short here, but this is lying out there since October 2016 and  it is working by the  way. There is no  air conditioning, nothing. It’s just  in the  heat  and  humidity of Hyderabad, collecting dust.  It’s working fine,  even  today.  It requires no maintenance. But huge  investments are very difficult to come by, particularly when you have breakthrough technology.

In my perspective, the other part of research, which we don’t do much of in India,  is injecting a new thought into  society. Consider the people who worked on quantum theory. There’s a profoundly different thought; before that,  it didn’t  exist, except for, you know, you have a few people doing  it. I would say both  quantum theory and  Carnot efficiency bother me. I mean, it is saying  that  if you have a heat  engine, you cannot have  more than 40% efficiency. You can  jump  up and  down and do whatever you want.  But that’s the best you can do. By and large, we are way below that,  concerning any heat engine you take, whether it is your automobile or whatever you have. I just  saw your  diesel  plant, which  gives  us  electricity. The same thing holds. Most of us don’t even go close to 40%. That’s like the  barrier. I mean, that’s  a profound thought, isn’t it? And there are  many  other examples that  I can put  out here. Many of you are  aware of it. Here  are  two pictures, which  I put up. The picture on the left is the quantum computer that IBM is developing. I think it’s probably 128 qubits. I was chair of the  committee which  funded this  quantum computer development at IISc Bangalore in collaboration with  Raman Research Institute. This guy, Chetan Singh Thakur, happens to be my MTech student from IIT Bombay. He is currently an Assistant Professor at IISc, Bangalore. This is Vibhor  Singh. They have  developed this  quantum computer. This is about eight  qubits right now. It’s not 128 qubits like IBM, but that’s the  beginning. And he’s also developed a very impressive neuron-on-a-chip. Analogue neural processor, 64 by 64 grid. He got it developed at TSMC. In this  picture, he’s testing it out.  I just happened to be in IISc for another meeting. And he ran  into  me and  said,  “Hey, Sir, come  and  take  a look at my lab”. So I was very proud and  very impressed. We need to  do  a lot  more of this  kind  of research also.  It may  not have applications tomorrow. But if it clicks, these are heavy investments, you  know.  I think we had  recommended  100 crores from  the working group at MEITY. But finally, I think he was saying they got 50 crores. So I said, “What happened? Where  did the  other 50 crores go?”. They were  just  smiling, because the  main  investigator, the  PI is Apoorva  Patel  and there is another investigator from Raman Research Institute. I’m forgetting her name at the moment, so apologies for that. 

I’ll take  a little  bit  more time  here. Am I taking too  much time?  No? Okay. I don’t know how many  of you have looked at bottom-up and  top-down research. There was  a famous paper sometime back  by a gentleman called  CK Prahalad. How many  of you have heard of CK Prahalad? Most management people would have heard of him. I think he was a big management guru.  Most  of us  couldn’t afford  him  in some sense. I came here for a lecture, right? You couldn’t have called him for a lecture. It would have cost you a pretty huge chunk of money—$50,000 or $100,000, God knows.  He was on the  board of HUL, Hindustan Unilever,  and  many  other boards. So he  wrote this  famous paper at  one  time.  I also was sold on it at one  time.  This idea was called  the  Fortune at the  Bottom of the  Pyramid. In some  sense, the  Nano was also motivated by this  particular paper. To summarize what he said, the  mass  is very high  at the  bottom of the  pyramid. Therefore, if you  can  customize your  products in  such  a manner that  they can afford  it, if we aggregate it, the profits could  be even  more than what  you make  on the  top  of the pyramid. For  example, when  the  iPhone came,  only  a few people could  afford  it. In 2008  I think it was  costing about $600.  Today also, I mean it’s about $900  or something, depending on whatever the version of the  iPhone is. So Prahalad’s  idea  was,  “No,  let’s  have  something  else”.  So, for  example, at  Hindustan Lever,  they  did  this   shampoo sachet which  cost  one  rupee. Now, it may be five rupees,  I don’t remember. People  like you and  me don’t buy shampoo sachets, right? We buy  bottles. The  idea  was  to  make  the sachet such  that  a villager  maybe  will buy two  sachets and he or she will shampoo their hair  twice  a month. But if you add  this  up… because our  population is huge,  India  has  1.4 billion  people. Even  if you  assume, maybe  you  know  200 million  are destitute and  can’t do anything, (I’m just putting arbitrary numbers), 250 million  are  people like us who  can buy lots of things and don’t have to worry. But there’s a huge chunk of people who can buy maybe four sachets in a month. Somebody might buy one, somebody may buy two and he did all kinds  of calculations based  on his research. He convinced Hindustan Lever and  they had  several such  products. But it didn’t  work.  It didn’t  kind  of go through. Even I thought it looked  like a great idea.  Nano was that  way, right? For  one lakh  rupees, you come  up with  a car.  So even  those people who don’t have enough money will be owning a car and they will say, “Look I’m also a car owner, you know”. But it didn’t work  out.  I think what  he  missed and  later on,  many  have now found  out that  perhaps that  was not the right way to do it. All said and done,  all of us are aspirational. Though I can’t afford  it, I aspire to buy a Mercedes. If I’m looking  at a car and I can’t afford  a Mercedes, I’ll try to buy something which comes close  to it or resembles a Mercedes. Maybe Hyundai has one such car, which looks like that. You know everything, all the  bells  and  whistles, are  there. But  it will cost  much less,  maybe  it will cost  you 15 lakhs  to 20 lakhs,  whatever it is, as  opposed to  Mercedes, which  may  cost  you  at least  a crore or so. I’ll buy that  and  feel that  “Look, I’m getting all the  bells and  whistles”. Aspirations are like bottom-up-top- down. The iPhone is a top-down innovation. It was designed by Steven  Jobs  saying  that  “I don’t  care.  I’m just  designing the  best  and  the  most  expensive piece.  But it is a fantastic instrument”. Today every phone that  you have in this  room, and  I have  it also, is the  iPhone clone  in some  sense, right? You can call it Android phones from  Samsung or whichever other company that  you have  but  it doesn’t really matter. It took off like wildfire.

There  are   many   such   cases   and   I  can   cite   many   other examples which  went  bottom-up also.  I won’t get into  that, you know.  So, at one time,  I shall give talks  on that.  I started a course with my friend Krithi Ramamritham on ICTD called

‘ICT for Socio-Economic Development’. We used  to discuss these things there. I now feel that  this  top-down is what  is going  to help  us. Nano was  bottom-up and  nobody wanted to buy a cheap car. I want  a car which  is like a Mercedes. But I don’t want  something cheap. Then  I will also feel cheap. I mean these are aspirational things. So, I think this is a call that you need  to take.  In India,  there is too much emphasis (and I’m one  of the  persons who sort  of doesn’t agree with  them and  people don’t like it) on what  is called  ‘frugal innovation’. You go to any IIT and  I’m sure you also have a lot of activity on that.  At any IIT that  you walk into,  everybody has  to talk of ‘frugal innovation’ or otherwise, you’re  politically on the wrong side  of the  spectrum. I think frugal  innovation is not going to work.  I don’t know who’s going to buy that.  Will you buy it? I’ll give an example. The lady who works at my home. She does the cleaning you know. So she said, “Saab ek phone dedo  na mere ko?” So, I said  “Theek hai”. I showed her  first and said that “I’ll buy this for you”. It was like a feature phone. She said  “Camera walaphone dedo  na mere ko”. So finally, I had to spend around 1000 or 2000 rupees more, a little more than that.  So finally  I gave her  a low-end Samsung phone. I don’t  even  remember which  model. I think it was  4000 rupees or something like that.  And she was very happy.  She would  send  pictures on WhatsApp  to my wife. Even at that level (like in the  case of this lady who works in three or four houses), aspiration is something we need  to keep  in mind. I’m not a big proponent of frugal  innovation. I think we need to think big. We don’t. We get too caught up in India,  saying that  “I need  to do something which  will serve  the  masses’’. This is counter to what  everybody talks  about. Maybe I was also  a little  more cautious in talking about it when  I was  a director or a professor because I had to get research funding. Today I’m retired, what can they do to me? At best they won’t put  me  on the  committee. It doesn’t matter. But I think it’s not going to work.  I think you need  to have a product which says hey, this competes with the best  in the world.  I also feel that  you cannot just have a localized product, you know. Ask yourself which  product are  you using,  which  is localized to India  or Rajasthan or Jodhpur? Hardly  any. All the products, in some  sense, have to be a global thing.  Even this small pen that  I have  is a Mitsubishi pen.  This is not  a very expensive pen.  I don’t  know  how  much it costs.  Maybe I got it in one of the  meetings like  this.  They  had  a pen  out  there and  I picked it up. Maybe it’s about 50 rupees, 100 rupees, I don’t remember. If you look  at your  glasses, they  might be  from Lenskart. My glasses are from Lenskart. Again, you know you want a crystal lens. You’re not going to ask for the glass made in Jodhpur. Nobody’s going to buy that. Even my cleaning lady won’t buy it. So, why are we getting into  frugal  innovation? I think we’re  just  doing  it for the  sake  of it. Nobody  is going to manufacture it and nobody’s  going to buy it. Now I’ve disagreed with the former Chairman of HCL, Ajai Chowdhry, who as some  of you may know,  is a great thinker and a great guy, someone whom  you should maybe  invite  someday. He was Chairman of the  Board  of Governors at Hyderabad for three years  and  then at Patna  for six years.  He is a fantastic person and a very great visionary. I was fortunate to have met him and learnt so much from him. But I disagree with him on this issue  of frugal  innovation. 

I’ve said  enough of these slightly-more pedantic things. So let  me  now  switch to  institution-building. This  picture is of the  main  quad  of IIT Hyderabad and  it is a slightly  older picture. Things are a little better now. I won’t talk much about construction. Perhaps, I will say a little  towards the  end.  If you’d like to know  more, I had  a big interview with  Subroto Chattopadhyay in this  thing  called  Brain  Trust. It’s a video which  is about one  hour long. You don’t  have  to remember the URL. Even if you simply search for ‘UB Desai Brain Trust’, you will get  that  video.  So as  Subroto Chattopadhyay runs this  organization, accidentally, we became friends. He was in Hyderabad, and he said, “Hey Udai, come  over, let’s have a drink’. (This video interview was before the drink by the way). So what  I like to talk about is what  makes a great institution. Sometimes we get carried away with the nuts  and bolts, and I don’t deny it. I can imagine, I mean, what Santanu Chaudhury is going to see the moment he enters his office. There will be this pile of nuts  and bolts problems waiting for him. He’s just putting out  fires  half  the  time.  There is very little  time  for worrying about vision  and  things like that.  You have to find extra time  for that  because that’s  how things are  run  there. That’s true everywhere. Okay, the structure is a little different in India  and  a lot of activity.  I mean, that  we can spend time and we can find out how to create an intellectual ecosystem. When I was a student, I did my Master’s  at Buffalo, where IITJ has a joint PhD programme. I was really happy  to know that and  must congratulate both  Professor Santanu Chaudhury as well as Tripathi, who’s the  president at Buffalo. Tripathi has been doing a great job out there. Later, I went to Hopkins. After getting my PhD, and when  I was a faculty, I spent about one quarter at Stanford University. What’s the big difference between Stanford, Hopkins and  Buffalo? There is some difference  between  Hopkins and   Stanford.  But  there’s  a huge  difference between Buffalo and Hopkins. It’s not the Professors. It is generally the  people you interact with.  First of all, essentially, everybody is top-notch out there. You will talk to them and they are going to challenge you. You cannot get away by just making a statement and  saying  “Yes! you’re right”.  If you  go to  a normal private college  out  here and you say something, they will just  accept it, like a God-given truth, because you’re  a Professor from  IIT Jodhpur. They’ll never challenge you. But if you go to some  other place,  like Stanford, everybody will challenge you. “Why? Why do you think this  is  right? You  know,  what’s  the  justification for it? If not  a mathematical proof,  at least,  tell  me  why”. That makes you learn and  grow.  The  second thing  that  you  see in that  intellectual environment is people who  are  coming in. Particularly at a place  like Stanford, it’s the  richness  of knowledge. Every  week,  you  have  to  decide whether you should go  for  this  seminar, that  seminar or  another one.

At Jodhpur,  you  are  starting a  School  with  a  programme in  Computational Social  Science, fantastic. There are  tons of programmes like that  at  Stanford. Literally, you have  to choose and  you get  all the  best  people in the  world  on the Stanford campus giving seminars. That’s because everybody wants to go to Stanford and  say, “I gave a talk  at Stanford”. The  point is  that  you  have  the  luxury  of  selecting whom you  should listen to.  Even  IITs have  not  done  that  much. For example, we don’t have  an IIT Bombay professor giving talks  at IIT Delhi, or vice versa.  We’ll get somebody from  the University of Bumblebee, Arizona to come and give a talk at IIT Delhi or IIT Bombay. But we won’t appreciate our colleagues who are in another institute in the country. This is, again, the Indian handicap, and I can talk a little more about it. But the key thing  is to create this intellectual atmosphere. This is the hardest thing  to do. American universities, all the Ivy League ones,  including Hopkins, were  that  way. I used  to have  big discussions with  undergraduates too.  I was  doing  my PhD, but  I had  undergraduate friends who  would  knock  on  my door  and  say, “Hey this  is what  we studied, you know,  what do you think of it?” Then, we were debating again. Professors would  come  and  debate with you. They just drop by and  say “What  do  you  think of this  theory which  has  been  talked about? Does it make  sense? But why is it not that way?”. That atmosphere is there to some  extent, in places  like TIFR, IISc, IITs, etc. But I think we need  to do a lot more. This is partly because we are too much into  nuts  and  bolts.  This H-index, citations, then whatever ranking. Kya ho  hara  he?  I mean, it’s just like we are  going  berserk with  all these numbers all over  the  place.  As someone said  in a post  that  was  shared with me, there is more fiction written in Excel than in Word. So that’s  what  that,  that’s  where we are  today.  And we need to  get  out  of that.  So I think this  is something we need  to create. If you ask me, what  would  something like that  take? One  line  statement for  a great Institute? You  don’t  have  to replicate Stanford. Don’t copy. You can never copy anybody. If you copy, you will always  be second-hand. Irrespective of how good you are, it will always be second-hand. Virat Kohli cannot become Sachin  Tendulkar. He  cannot copy  it.  He’s Virat  Kohli, even  though right now  Indian cricket is going through a bad  phase and  all of us  are  picking on him.  But Sachin Tendulkar is Sachin Tendulkar. He is not Vishwanath. He plays very differently. So we have to accept that.  You can define  your  own thing  and  don’t  copy any other. Of course, you can learn from  everyone. 

The other thing which I would like to emphasize is cooperative competitiveness. We compete, but  we don’t  cooperate that much in India.  And I’ll give you an  example. I’m willing  to take a bet right now and I’m willing to give a 5000 rupee bet. If you take  a PhD thesis from  IIT Bombay  or at IIT Delhi or you know,  IIT Madras, how  many  references are  there for researchers in  other IITs  or  IISc? Almost  zero!  You  know, I don’t  get  too  many  theses to  review nowadays because I refuse to  sign  theses unless they  have  five references to researchers from  other institutes in the  country. They will reference, as  I said,  the  University of Bumblebee, Arizona, but they will not reference IIT Kharagpur. I was reviewing a thesis on image  processing. The guy had  done  such  a thing but there’s no reference. He says “No, Sir, I’m very different… this  and  that”.  I said,  “I know  Professor BB Chaudhuri. He’s in ISI, Kolkata.  And roughly two hours from  where you are. He’s doing  something similar”. The student says  “Yeah, but it’s not the same”. Obviously,  it’s not the same  thing.  If it was the  same,  you wouldn’t be  able  to get  a PhD. After  a lot of convincing, finally,  I said  I’m not  signing unless he  put  in those five references. We do not  acknowledge. Our h-index will become high  if we acknowledge our  colleagues in other Institutes. I  agree we  don’t  have  to  acknowledge within the  same  Institute. That’s  a different thing.  But,  at least,  if I’m in IIT Bombay,  why can’t  I acknowledge the  good  work that  is done  in  Madras, Kharagpur, ISI Kolkata,  TIFR etc? We very rarely do that.  If you look at our  presentations and when  students or  Professors make  presentations, we don’t reference them. And if we do, our reference will be to the US. How can you say in the 21st century that nobody in the country is doing  this  work?  And that  you’re the  only one  doing  this? At a recent meeting, I said  that  1.4 billion  people cannot be number one. You have to be modest about that. And if you see a Stanford Professor, he will never say “I’m the first to do it”. In India,  you will see this  in all our presentations, seminars, etc that  we were  the first to do something. I don’t know why but  we have  this  hangover about being  first.  I don’t  know why. If you look at a Stanford Professor, he will acknowledge Berkeley, Urbana, Champagne, Purdue, Michigan,  MIT, etc. “This is what  I have done.  These  are  the  benefits of the  new things in what  I’m presenting”.  They  never claim  that  it is something so unique that  nobody in the  world  is looking  at it. But we have  this,  you know…I think that’s  what  I meant by cooperative competitiveness. And we have to compete obviously,  there is no  way out  of it. But there is a certain respect and cooperativeness. I just coined this phrase, it may or may not work. 

Another thing which I like to emphasize is something I learned from   the  former President of  Buffalo  at  one  time,   Steve Sample. Then he went on to become President at USC. He has written a book  called  the  ‘Contrarian Guide  to Leadership’. You should read that book. It’s an interesting book and it was gifted  to me by Janis, who’s the Dean of Engineering at USC. In the  book,  Sample  has this  nice  statement ‘Think grey’. In India, we tend to say that this guy is a strong person and that he  can  immediately make  decisions. Yes  or  no.  Sample  i’s emphasizing, “Don’t do that”.  That’s  the  worst thing  to  do. He says life is grey. Life is not black and white.  Life is not yes and no. Life is full of maybes. At every instant, in some sense, you’re  making a maybe  decision and  then saying,  “Okay, let me do that”. That is where the judgment call comes in. That’s a  complicated thing   and  it  is  not  easy  to  do.  Think  grey, and  this  is a hard thing  to do. I kept  emphasizing this,  right from  2009, when  I became a Director. I would  tell this to my faculty also. “Don’t worry, we don’t have to decide everything right now. And every  decision need  not  be a hard ‘yes’ and ‘no’. There are too many variables and there is no one singlehuman being  or three of us sitting in this  room who can say that,  ‘Yes’”. But somebody has to call a closure. So you do that. So this  is the  hard thing.  Think  about it… what  it means to think grey. 

The  other part of institution building, in my opinion, is faculty,  faculty,  faculty.  I mean, that’s  what  I did.  To some extent, I learned that from Professor Nag, who was a Director at  IIT Bombay  from  1984 to  1994. He’s  the  one  who  hired me at IIT Bombay. As per  my experience, and  later on, also, as  Mr  Ghosh,  who  was  the  Registrar at  IIT Bombay,  used to  recall, very  often,  anybody who  walked   in  to  meet  the Director would be told, “Oh, he’s not available”. He was there in the  boardroom, just  going  through Faculty  applications. That’s  all! He worked really hard. And if you look  at  it, all the  IIT Bombay people who have become Directors were  all hired by Professor Nag, including Devang  Khakhar, myself, Karandikar and  many  others. So I think faculty  is the  most important thing.  Once you get good faculty, then it is smooth sailing. The Director will just sit on his chair, smoke cigars  if he wishes, you know, and not have very much to do. But there are  a few other things you need  to do besides hiring, such as faculty  empowerment. Luckily,  at  IIT, faculty  are  highly empowered. I think Prof.  Santanu is doing  a great job, but in many  of the  younger IITs, it is a very top-down process, you know.  The faculty  are  a little  scared. They will say, “Oh, no,  no,  that  he  will not  approve this”.  The  joke  in  old  IITs is that  if there are  500 faculty  members, the  poor  Director needs the approval of 499 to do anything that he wants to do. Otherwise, he can’t do anything out there. Okay. So that’s the kind of empowerment that  the faculty have in the older  IITs. I think that  is something we need  to bring  into  the  younger IITs to empower the faculty. It is not done to a large extent for whatever reason. I mean, we can debate that,  discuss that but I think we need to create that. That is, to me, the tremendous strength of the  IIT system. Sometimes people may say, “Oh, there is too  much empowerment”. It’s like saying  “There  is too much freedom”. What do you mean by too much freedom? If you put  one  lock on the  freedom, that’s  the  beginning of putting all the locks. It doesn’t work that way. You can’t put a lock on freedom. It’s the same thing with empowerment. You can’t do that. You have to have that  empowerment. Incorrect disagreement goes back to my first line: dissent. I don’t mean a situation like in the movie, Chennai Express, where Deepika Padukone tells Shahrukh Khan “Mundi Hilao”. You don’t want to have a mass  of “Mundi hilao” people. You want people who will challenge you, who  will disagree with  you. Then  some interesting things will come out. That is the whole purpose of interacting with intellectuals. I used  to joke that  if two PhDs agree on  something, then you  should worry. By definition, two  PhDs  are  not  supposed to  agree. They’re  supposed to fight over everything. 

The next  thing  is to have  a big vision.  I remember when  I became a Director, many  said  “No, no,  do it incrementally, you know,  one  step  at a time”.  But China  has  taught us one thing  and  this  is something I learned even  before I became a Director. Leapfrog. Don’t take  baby  steps. Irrespective  of whatever views we have on China,  I think we can still learn a lot from  them. I’m not saying  that  I’m enamored with China by any stretch of the imagination, and I don’t like that system. But yes, they have been  able to leapfrog. They think big. And big is massive. Big as in, I mean, one  has  no idea.  If you’ve ever  been  to China,  you would  know.  We build  one  flyover and  if you’ve been  to Bombay,  we have  that  Worli  sea link. We just project it, saying  “ Aha!”. That is like a baby structure in China.  A small village might have that  in some  sense. You look at the  flyovers  that  they have  built.  There might be six or seven  layers  of the  flyover.  In a sense, they’ve put  the  US to shame in some  of these things. They think big, I think we have  lost  somewhere along  the  line.  Maybe  funding is not there. Often,  most  people say about proposals, “No, no, no, this  is too  big a thing, they  should do this  much, and  then they can come  back  again,  and  we will see what  we can do”. I would  say “Dedo  yaar,  if it succeeds, just  think of it that way. If he succeeds, that  is the value in it. Don’t worry about whether he will succeed or not”. We worry about whether the guy’s going to succeed. I mean, guys are good. We know these are Professors who were  doing  good work.  Go ahead with it. You need  to have a big vision. This is easily said. To define  it, you have to look at how things have changed, like this  ICPS. At one time,  I used  to play a more active role. So I told all the ICPS to think of one very hard problem that  they’re going to work on. And I said, “As long as I’m present, I will defend you even if you fail. It doesn’t matter. But we need to attempt that”. And we’re not  doing  it and  I’ll take  maybe  60 seconds extra out here to tell the  DARPA story,  which  I was talking about. In one particular year, 60-65% of the projects that the DARPA Director had funded or sponsored were successful. Normally, we would have thought, “Oh, 65! Okay, next time,  make  it 75-80%”. That would  be the  Indian response, right? The DARPA Director was taken to task.  “How come  65% succeeded? You know,  we do  not  expect more than 33% to  succeed!” Their idea was that they were not there to fund problems which can be solved that  somebody else can fund. They wanted to fund difficult  problems. That’s how the Internet came up. It is one of the biggest contributions of DARPA. Can you imagine way back  in the  70s? You know,  they  funded it saying,  “How can two  computers talk  to each  other? “ That’s  all. That’s  what led to everything that  we have today.  So I think you need  to really think big. 

The other part which I feel, and which is based  on experience (things that I did and things that accidentally happened), that we must focus  on is ‘Labs, labs, labs’. Build labs.  I was very proud when I stepped down as a Director in 2019. I’m trying to remember the exact number. I think we had some  150 labs or something like that.  Many times I would  divert construction money into  labs.  The  ministry would  say “Why did you not make  a building?”.I would  say,  “You know  it  will  happen”. But  if the  professor wanted an  NMR machine to  do  some research out  there, it would  cost  six crores or eight  crores. So that  was  my  priority. These  are  pictures of equipment from the temporary campus. I said, “It doesn’t matter that we are  on a temporary campus, buy the  equipment, start your R&D, and let’s not wait for the permanent campus”. This is a typical  HP garage model. I mean, I took a bit of flak from  the ministry. But in the long run, I think we succeeded. I believe why IIT Hyderabad is in the top 10 is fundamentally because of this  particular approach. Labs and  providing funding for the equipment that  the faculty wanted for research. 

Another thing  is  innovation and  discontinuity. We all talk about Innovation. Let me mention a discontinuity. There’s a big group in California led by, I think, Ray Kurzweil.  It was called the Singularity University, if I’m not mistaken. You can check  it out. If you look at the history of technology, what has changed are  singularities. The  transistor was  a singularity. Shannon’s  paper was  a singularity. The  first  development of the  laser  was  a singularity. Today  I can  have  a laser  pen like a laser  pointer. I mean, it has come  to that  level, costing a few rupees or whatever few hundred rupees. But the  first development of the laser  changed everything. Now, laser cutters, this  laser,  that  laser,  laser  surgery for your  cataract etc.  etc.  are  all over  the  place.  So, the  world  is full of these singularities. At one time,  my former Professor Sharan from IIT Kanpur had  given  a beautiful talk.  Now he’s retired. He was there in Gandhinagar for a long time.  He says you need ‘impulses’. He used  the  word  ‘impulses’, some  people call it ‘discontinuity,’. You need  that.  That  is where things change, that  is what  lifts  the  averages. But these are  hard things to do. So, as collectives, I think IITs and  IISc and  TIFR, are  we creating impulses? Are we  creating discontinuities? When we  brainstorm, we  brainstorm about all  the  twisting and turning. Sometimes I think our researchers have become like Bollywood  music  directors. I think we shouldn’t do that.  We have to really look at discontinuities. 

There is something I tried and to some  extent, it succeeded. It was what  we called  ‘fractal academics’. Basically,  we just completely modified the whole curriculum. That’s a separate talk. I just have one slide here to show what  it is. Essentially, we ruptured the  semester. There’s nothing like a semester. We had segments of seven  credit hours each. What we did is that  some  courses are  seminar modules, some  are  14 hours, some  are  21 hours, some  are  28 hours, all the  way to 42. 42 is your  normal three-credit course, which  is three contact hours per week. We worked with it and worked it out. Luckily for me,  I had  this  thought, and  I had  two  Faculty  members Sumona and GVV Sharma. They came to me and said: “Sir, we have this problem…” I said, “Look, do you think this approach will help?” They said, “Yes, it looks good”. Then they went and developed everything. So clearly,  I must thank them. But for them, nothing would  have happened. Then,  of course, there was  a battle royale in the  Senate to get  something like this to go through. This is how it used  to be. Now I think the new Director has changed quite  a bit. I would say he has made it a little more traditional. So this is what we had first. In the first year,  during the  first  semester, when  a student walks  in for electrical engineering, he would  have to do an independent project. The idea was to just do some project on day one when you enter IIT. These projects were not given grades. When the 26 January celebrations were  on, there was a display  of these projects. Then  we  started a course on  Digital  Fabrication. We had  to have  a course on Workshop. I’m presuming, you also have Workshop. So I asked the  faculty  and  I said “Name one  computer scientist, one  electrical engineer, who  has ever taken a hacksaw, or even held a hacksaw after  he or she finished her  BTech.  Or  ever  for  that  matter?” I said,  “Why are we emphasizing this thing? This was done  in the 50s and 60s. Does it make  sense in 2010 to do something like this?”. So, luckily for me, this  is where I talk about conversing with faculty. It so happened that  Surya and I had to go to the main campus from   the   temporary  campus because something was required. I said, “Surya, why don’t you come  along? You can help  me”. It is about half an hour’s  drive.  Then  I asked, “Surya,  what  do you think? Does  it make  sense to do this” He’s a mechanical engineer. He did his PhD in 3D printing, with  Karunakaran at IIT Bombay.  He was young,  of course, and  a conformist as I said.  So partly he said,  “Yes, sir”. And I said, “What do you think of this?  Let’s replace this with  3D printing”. IIT Hyderabad, at one  time  (I am  not  sure about now), taught a 3D printing course in the  very first  semester the moment a student entered. The key thing  is that students come  with  very bright eyes. They all come  with  very bright eyes,  thinking “Aha, I made it to IIT”. In Bombay,  I had  the same  thing.  I had a good equation with students and so they would  come  and  chat.  “Sir, I came  to study  electronics. One year  has  gone  by. Where  are  electronics?” “ I stayed here so  that  we  will  study   communication. I’m  still  doing  the same  PCM. I’m here because I’m good  at  PCM, otherwise, I would  not  be out here”.  Of course, it was very tough at IIT Bombay  and  I couldn’t do  this.  But  as  a Director, I could push a little  bit. So we had  calculus I, calculus II, electrical circuits, magnetic circuit, digital  logic design in the  first semester; digital  system design, first  semester; signals and communication,  first   semester, one   credit  course.  Some of them are  14-hour modules. Some  run  right through the semester like  the  independent project and  fabrication.  So, if you look at digital  signal  processing communication, it is in the  fifth and  sixth  segments of our  module. The idea was to offer  a course in signal  processing and  communication, which  covers  the  initial  sections of all the  nine  chapters in a book,  assuming the  book has  nine  chapters. Do you know the  interesting part? I don’t  know  how  it is now  again  but at one  point in time,  civil engineers were  taking this  class. That’s  when  I realized that  today’s  signal  processing is all pervasive. Mechanical engineers use  it, civil engineers use it, everybody uses  it. But they’re afraid to take a course from an electrical faculty. Electrical and Computer Science faculty are notorious for giving tough grades. “I don’t want to sit and study Shannon sampling theorem and all that,  you know. I’m doing my metallurgy or civil engineering. But can I?” This was the  idea.  Similarly, I must thank Professor Rajalakshmi for the Internet of Things  course, I had to really ask her and she said, “Okay, I’ll do it.”. That’s a two-credit course in the very first  semester. So the  exciting thing  was  that  the  students who  entered at  that  time  learned the  Internet of Things. They learned signals and  communication, they  learned 3D printing, and they did a project on their own. We gave about 2000  or 4000  rupees. I forget the amount, students also put their own  money and  built  things, all kinds  of fun  things.  I think we should make  things fun. Anyway, that’s  a separate topic.  So this  is I would  say,  it was  a break away  from  the way that  typically,  semesters and  curriculum are  there in the  IIT system. It actually worked. I really had  to do a good job of marketing. In fact, to do this marketing, I used  to have my lunch every day with  the  students in the  student hostel. You know,  the  same  boring dal, boring sabzi,  baingan, and, you know, whatever. So I used to sit with them and just catch hold  of 3, 4, 5, 7 students who  were  there at one  table  and say, “Okay, now for the  next hour, I’m going to bore  you, do bear with me”. And being the Director, they couldn’t ask why. “What are the problems? What do you think? Why should this work?” I was talking to students, not faculty. The faculty was a different ballgame. I did  convince quite  a few of them.  I had  to do this  like work,  almost like a routine, unless I was traveling. 

Construction, okay. Everybody talks  about it. I’m not  going to say much. This is the  only slide  I have. It’s a monkey that you have to deal with. There is no way out of it. And each one has  their way of dealing with  it. We did our  own things. We had  some  additional funding coming from  Japan. So we had the luxury of doing things, which may be Jodhpur won’t have, or,  you know,  Bhubaneshwar or  Patna  etc.  didn’t  have.  We were  able to build some  extra interesting things. The picture you see  at the  bottom here is the  hostel area.  And we had  a lot more freedom there. Now everybody has to go to CPWD. Then  it was not the case. So we had a great set of architects, including an  architect  named Margaret who  was  kind  of collaborating  with   a  company  in  Pune.   Okay.   Margaret worked for  a very  big  architectural firm  in  Germany. The hostels were  designed by Margaret. But officially they  were part of an  architectural company in Pune.  This  dining hall was designed by Margaret. These buildings were designed by Dev Guha.  He runs a company. I don’t  have  other pictures here. The  first  picture that  you  saw was  the  picture of the lecture  hall  complex  designed  by  Christopher Beninger. He’s an interesting guy, a graduate of MIT and  Harvard, an American who  has  settled in  India.  Reverse migration, he speaks Marathi, and he works out of Pune.  So I had four sets of architects: Beninger, Astute  and  Margaret, Dev Guha and his  team, and  two  Japanese  architects. So it was  fantastic. I mean, at  one  point as  a joke,  I thought that  maybe  I’m actually becoming an architect, just spending time with all of them, sitting with  them, learning from  them, debating with them. I think it was  a great experience. I really enjoyed it. I was lucky to have  had  a fantastic group of architects who listened and  told us what  and how things are  done.  The way the  Germans think and  the  way the  Japanese think were  so different. Margaret actually studied the  wind  pattern and the  sun  pattern over the  year  in that  region, and  that’s  how she  designed things. There are  fins  out  here. You can’t  see it. Maybe you can see the  fins out here. So these fins are  all unevenly spaced. Everybody who  comes asks,  “How come they’re not evenly spaced?” Margaret’s idea was that  “I’ll unevenly space   them so  that  you  get  maximum shadow”. Now, the  Japanese  also… I can’t  tell  enough stories about detailing. 

I think I have one more slide. There is a book that  one should read on leadership. You know, I’ve never met this gentleman. Fred  Terman. I studied his book, Radio Engineering, when  I was a graduate student. He is considered to be the  father of Silicon  Valley. He was the  Dean  of Engineering at Stanford. And  he  has   done   some   amazing  things.  HP  started  the company in Silicon Valley in the late 50s because of Fred Terman. And in Silicon  Valley, I think most  people know  of Fred Terman. It’s an expensive book. If you get a chance, you should take a look at it. 

These are some things I can repeat. I like the first one and the last  one.  You know  this  is from  Steve  Sample,  ‘think  Gray!’.

‘Never make  a decision today  that  can reasonably put  off till tomorrow’.  Just  contrary, right? In  our  case,  we would  go,

‘This guy is a strong leader, he can take decisions now’. It is not required. You create more problems than you solve problems in some  cases.  Then  he  has  this  nice  thought. ‘You should know  the  hill you  are  willing  to  die  on’. This  is important. This  is something Kalam has  talked a lot about. Shoot  your own horse!  Don’t force  others to do your  dirty  work.  Kalam has a nice anecdote about when  Satish Dhawan was the ISRO Chair  and  also the  Director of IISc, Bangalore. Okay, I won’t get into that story. So know what hill you’re willing to die on. I should know where I’m going to be finished. Keep it a secret, but mentally be prepared. If I do this,  someday, somebody’s going  to finish  it off somewhere along  the  line.  So I’ll stop here. Thank  you so much for being  so patient and  listening to all my stories. 

Foundation Day Speech by Guest of Honor
(2nd August 2022)

Prof. Souvik Bhattacharyya

Prof. Souvik  Bhattacharyya
Vice Chancellor, BITS Pilani

Prof.   Uday  B.  Desai;   Prof.   Santanu  Chaudhary;  Deputy Director;  Professor  Bose;  and   all  the   dignitaries present here; all my dear  friends; students, it’s an absolute joy, J for joy IIT-’J’, to be here, you know, it’s so heartening to note that new IITs, the second generation, we all worked in the old IIT system and now the new IITs are making the country proud. I think, you know,  going  over  and  listening to Prof. Chaudhury’s brief  overview of the  progress made, having, you know,  walked  through a little  bit and  you know,  driven through the  campus, It’s a fantastic feeling  that  this  IIT is going to go places. Absolutely.  I think the whole commitment toward excellence and eminence that this institute is making, the  entire community is making not  just the leadership, it’s something which  is so reassuring. It’s not just shouting from the rooftop, it’s substance embedded. So, that  is something I felt extremely good  about. Santanu has  been  a friend for so many years.  And it gives personal joy as well, that  a friend is doing  extremely well. I don’t want to bring  comparisons. But this  is one  particular growth and  in  terms of attention to quality,  it’s really something we all should celebrate today, 14 years  15th Foundation Day, so wonderful, good to celebrate. This is celebration time!  I just have this  morning, this  early afternoon as  well,  while  going  over  particularly the presentations and  exhibition, I went  to  so many,  some  19- odd  technologies specifically, you know,  productization, development, translational work,  really something. They’re in  different stages of maturity in terms of enterprise, and different stages of the  technology getting completely translated. But in so many  different   areas   and    the engagement with  enterprise partners, engagement with industry partners, students involved.  Remember, one  is technology development, the  other one  is human resource, they   are   going   to   go  places   and   replicate  this   model. That’s     how     that’s     a    force   multiplier from   academic institutes. And that’s the difference from science laboratories in this  country like CSIR, and  so on. So academic Institutes serve  different purposes. And this  is where, let me  spend a few  generic comments going  out  of  IITJ. And,  you  know, today,  our  Institutes or higher education institutes are required to be transformation ready, because this workspace, this sector,  is   going   through  tremendous  changes, and from   various  directions.  Academic  leadership, they are challenged to do good work  in spite  of those changes. So we need to be transformation ready. And that, that readiness has to  be  consistent. We are  expected to  perform consistently with  the  abilities and  resources, it just  can’t be sustainable and you just can’t be surviving, you’ve got to do well. So, to do this,   to  sustain reputation,  we  need   to  navigate the competition. That’s  something which  every  academic Institute leadership is paying  close attention to.  And  when you  are  able to navigate the  competition, you got to it with good  strategic plans.  What are  the  sectors and  what  are  the areas I want to work? How do you do it? How do I manoeuvre my resources  optimally? and  things like  that.  So, many  of these are typically  facilitated by evidence based  decision making and evidence is what we are looking at. So, ultimately, a whole lot of information and  data  organization of what the institute is doing?  What the  institute is capable of doing tomorrow? That becomes a pursuit. So organized information and  data.  So a lot of Institutes are  facilitating this with  a structure, with a how to and who will do it in the institute and so on. Let me point at a sort of a cautionary note that many of us we feel and this question is doing the rounds in our minds: Are our  universities, our  academic Institutes, are  these becoming overly  external regulatory compliance focused? Particularly the   institutes which   are   under, you  know,   I always  say that  organizations or  institutions like IITs, IIMs and similar other Institutes, they are in a way fortunate. I was on the other side, you know, so I was on the fortunate side. So today, I see that there is a subtle force in this  country, which is not  good  for  the  nation, where we  are  becoming overly external regulatory,  compliance  focused.  Prescriptive regulation. This  is  not  going  to  be  good  for anybody. So I tell  you,  universities in  this  country, they  have  to  have  a structure which   focuses on  quality,   and  it’s  called  IQAC, internal quality  assurance cell. No IITs have  IQAC, but  ISB, the  Indian  School   of   Business, that’s  not  even  under the Ministry of Education. And that’s the highest ranked Institute for  any  Institute international ranking in the  country. You may not agree with ranking that that’s alright. I mean, I don’t either. But what  I’m trying to say is, every  institute has  its own way of ensuring something: ensuring an outcome, you don’t  have  to be prescriptive about it. So, UGC tells  us that this  is IQAC, these are  the  15 to 20 members, you need. Prescribing every member who are the members and all that. And  then NAAC, which   was  established  28  years   ago,  is identical, almost identical models. Self study  reports, etc. If any of you have tested it, it’s such  a tedious exercise. I don’t know  what  it does,  what  good  it does  for the  institute. But this is how we are looking  at quality.  I think we need  to wake up and redo, there has to be refined thoughts on this, because it does not, this entire exercise does not give us insights. But instead, what  people have done  well, is instead of IQAC kind of structure. So people do something like institutional knowledge analytics cell,  or  similar re-worded  name of a unit, which  does this sort  of thing. You know, looking  at data, visualise, creating dashboards and  give present insights to the  leadership for strategic planning for tomorrow. So that works much better. And today  data  is going  to be king, absolutely king  in terms of all kinds  of inner patterns that come  out,  which  will give you  insights that  this  is how  we should be doing it, and so on and so forth. So I point out that as  in  the  US, these sort  of offices  are  called  the  Office  of Institutional Research. But you know,  we can  use  different names because they provide you the way ahead, the pathway forward for taking decisions on the  functions, on all the university functions that  we  do. And the  last  bit  I want  to mention that  there are  new parameters that  Institute’s and ranking agencies definitely will do well to look  at by neutralizing, sort  of normalizing   parameters,   which becomes sanitized from  local influences. I’ll give you an example. So, a lot of you know confusion and I think some  of the  leading IIT former Directors and  so on,  and  they  have also  written on  this  very  recently, that  how  we can  look  at ranking analysis in a very different way, pointing at NIRF and so on. So, one  of the  things we, you know,  looked  at is, new parameters are  today  being  defined to  assess quality  and impact of research, for  example, and  that’s  one  of the  big verticals. And so,  there are  attempts to  eliminate these unscrupulous attempts to enhance citations data  by an institute. Something which  is proposed, I mean, it’s nothing that  is way absolutely new. People  are aware of it, but we just need  to  implement it.  So we  may  want  to  measure NLIQ which  is non-local influence quotient. So, basically,  we routinely eliminate self citation which  is fairly  routine and the  correct way  to  go  about it.  But  we  also  would  like  to eliminate local institutional self-institutional  citation. So, NLIQ will do that,  and  that  will so, meaning fraction of total citations received from  outside the university is what we are going to look at. A quantity that will indicate exclusion of self institute’s citations   and  so on. So, you know,  for example, there  are   similar things  happening,  which   many   of  the journals and the databases that have been  using  for example, SNIP,  source normalized parameters,  similar approaches. We would also do well to include things like SCImago-JR, SJR q1 q2 percentiles. What sort  of fractions of your  total publication of the  institute that  are  appearing in q1 and  q2. Because  otherwise you’re not going to be able to separate out those who are  doing  excellent and  you know,  eminent work compared to  just  a statistic,  like   how   many    papers   in Scopus.   So  these  are   things  that   need   to  be  like  what computer scientists routinely look at a fraction of core  rank conference articles, right, similar approaches. So we need  to bring  in. You  know,  in  graduate employability: placement, people do with  plain  vanilla.  Percent placed and  so on. So, that  needs to stop  because it doesn’t reveal their strengths. So, we  need  to  bring  in,  in  addition to  things like  median salary,  mean salary max mean and so on, we need  to bring  in for those which  are  performing at the  top  level, something like IITJ. The fraction of graduates employed in Fortune 500, Fortune 100, Fortune 250 companies, what  fraction of your total  placement are  in those organizations or maybe  we can look at eminent organizations in India  and so on. So, we can also  define  our  setup. You  know,  how  many  distinguished alumni from  the  University, you  can  define   thresholds to filter  in industry, academia, enterprise creation, HNI and  so on. The footprint of the  university, we have been  discussing it all day long, innovation incubation workspace. The number of startups incubated, amount of funds raised by these by graduates, unicorns out of the institute, fundraised by these unicorns and  so on. Benchmarking against competitors and peers is better done  by deploying these yardsticks. On industry engagement I think we need to, for the students, we need  to figure  out what sort  of industry engagement is being done   by  the   University. Pre-placement   offers   should  be counted. Today these are not getting counted by the ranking agencies and  so on. I think the  canvas  is changing. And accordingly  we   should  be   using    a   different   basket  of parameters to  make  the  comparisons, benchmarking and assessment worthwhile. I wish  I acted  your  youthful Godspeed. Thank you so much.

International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Ankur Gupta, Atul Kumar Sharma, Chandan Pandey and Hardik Kothadia

“International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering  (ICRAM 2022)” was  organized  from   25 - 27 August  2022 by the  Department of Mechanical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, India through the virtual mode.  The aim of ICRAM 2022 was to bring  together innovative scholars  and  industry experts working in  the field of mechanical engineering in a joint  forum. The main purpose of the  conference was  to  promote R&D activities and   to   improve  the   exchange  of  scientific  information among researchers,  developers, engineers, students  and practitioners working all across the  globe.  Conference exchanged views and experiences in Conventional Manufacturing, Advanced  Manufacturing, Heat  Transfer & Thermal Engineering, Fluids Engineering, Materials, Applied Mechanics, Computational Mechanics, Composites, Smart Materials & Structures, Energy  Materials, Biomechanics, Dynamics, Vibration & Control, Robotics automation & control, Nonlinear dynamics, Advances  in Aerospace & Defense Technology, Micro- & Nano-Systems Engineering, Acoustics & Wave propagation, Mechanics of Solids, Structures &  Fluids,  Advanced  theory &  simulations and many  more. ICRAM 2022 was a Three-day event,  consisting of guest  speeches by both leading researchers and industrial experts. This  event  provided a platform to exchange views and disseminate the results of the latest study  on the future research directions of Mechanical Engineering. 

The  inaugural session on  the  first  day  initiated with  the opening  remarks  of Prof. Santanu Chaudhury, Director, Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, followed  by the highlights of various R & D activities of IIT Jodhpur. Three- day sessions covered a plenary talk of Prof. C. Nataraj, Moritz Professor & Director, VCADS (Villanova Center for Analytics of     Dynamic   Systems,  Villanova   University),  with   other keynote talks  of speakers like Prof. Gal Shmuel (Technion - Israel  Institute of Technology) Prof. Shantanu Bhattacharya (Indian  Institute  of    Technology,  Kanpur),  Prof.  Richard Sandberg (Energy    Institute,  University   of    Melbourne), Prof.  Michel  Destrade, Chair  of Applied  Mathematics (NUI Galway) & Adjunct  Professor (University College  Dublin, Ireland),  Prof.   Mokarram  Hossain  (Swansea   University), Prof. Oded Amir (Technion - Israel  Institute of Technology), Prof.  Stephan Rudykh,   (University  of  Wisconsin-Madison–USA), Prof.  Siddini  Venkatesh  Prabhu (Indian     Institute of   Technology   Bombay),    Prof.    M.   M.   Joglekar  (Indian Institute of  Technology Roorkee),    Dr. Aviru  Kumar   Basu (INST Chandigarh), Dr. Divyansh   Patel   (IIT Bhubaneswar), Prof. Jan Korwink, Director,  Institute of  Microstructure Technology (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany),   Prof.  Bidhan    Pramanick (Indian    Institute   of Technology Goa) and  others, along  with  the presentations of participants from various institutions. 

The  conference  received huge   and  exciting participation from  10+ countries with  more than 100 participants in the domain of mechanical engineering. The  event  successfully ended up with  the  announcement of awards in various categories and a vote of thanks to all the supporting hands.

The organizing team included Dr. Ankur Gupta, Dr. Chandan Pandey, Dr. Atul Kumar  Sharma, Dr. Hardik Kothadia, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur.

Youth Conclave 2022

Dr. Sankalp Pratap

Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur has organized Youth Conclave  2022 in collaboration with the  Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) from  15th to 18th September This was the fifth edition of the Youth Conclave, and the event’s theme was ‘Emerging Technologies for  Sustainable Future’.  More  than 320 students participated from  around 50 institutes across the country, apart from over 350 student from  within IIT Jodhpur,  taking the  total  registered active participants to ~ 700 students. 

The students who participated in this event  got an excellent platform to interact with  fellows  of INAE and  experts who have contributed to Engineering, Research and Development, Industry and  Academia. The  INAE-SERB Youth  Conclave 2022 provided a platform for the  country’s bright minds to express their technological creativity and ingenuity. 

The  specific   focus   areas  of  INAE-SERB  Youth  Conclave

2022 were  Quantum Technologies, Smart infrastructure, Digital Healthcare, Materials for Sustainability, Experiential Interface, Sustainability of Drinking Water  and  Food: An Emerging Vista  of Engineering. Various  competitions and events as listed  below were  coordinated by a large  team  of students of IIT Jodhpur who were  mentored by institute faculty memb ers towards this large scale endeavour:

1. Hackathon: Participants developed proof-of-concept (POC) as  part of the  solution to  address the  problem statements posed by the organisers.

2. Ideathon: This was a brainstorming event where people with  diverse knowledge backgrounds, skill sets  and interests got together to address the  predetermined problems for substantive, innovative and comprehensive solutions

3. Game Jam: This was an accelerated opportunistic game creation event where games were  created in a relatively short time frame exploring the given design constraint(s) and end results.

4. Start-up Show Case: In this,  the  founders who  started innovating when they were students themselves and have founded their venture have shared their perspectives on the exciting journey of becoming an entrepreneur

5. 3-Minutes Thesis  Presentation by  Research Scholars: In this,  the  research scholars have  been  challenged to present and  state the  significance of  their research/ thesis  in  just   180  seconds,  in  an  engaging manner which  can also cater to an audience with  non-research background

6. Technical Sessions: This event  consisted of Tech  Talks by invited subject matter experts to cover  a wide range of technical concepts and  ideas.  Participating students presented technical papers authored by them.

 INAE-SERB Youth Conclave  2022, hosted by IIT Jodhpur, witnessed many  activities for  the  first  time  in  its  history. From  a maximum number of participation from  students to various novel innovation oriented competitions were  the highlight of the event.

The Sandstone Summit 3.0

Dr. Anuj Pal Kapoor

The  Board   of  Career  Development, IIT  Jodhpur  in collaboration with  the   School   of  Management and Entrepreneurship   organised  the    third   edition  of   the Annual  Business Conclave  at IIT Jodhpur. With the  dawn  of technological supremacy dictating the way of the world,  our actions and strife towards advancements have taken their toll on our beloved  earth. Hence,  it’s of great pertinence that  our next steps must be to mitigate the impact of these effects and help  save our  Earth from  the  perils of mankind. The theme for Sandstone Summit 3.0 was “India Accelerates: Canvassing Vicennial  Sustainability”, which  is about advancing towards development sustainably. IIT Jodhpur had gone the extra mile to  ensure that  they  adopt sustainable practices during the entire event. The custom-made invitations of The Sandstone Summit were  made from  completely sustainable products. The  paper used  for the  invitations was  made out  of cotton paper that had marigold seeds infused in them, which  could, later on, be planted to grow  a marigold plant. The card  was enveloped in Butter paper and  fastened using  jute  threads along  with  a small  stalk  of Baby’s Breath. All plastic used  as part of the event was eventually disposed with the help of our event  partner “ The  Disposable Company”. The  Disposable Company is India's first  plastic credit platform dedicated to climate action, recycling plastic waste  & empowering waste workers. The Sandstone Summit 3.0 aimed at forging a strong bond  between the  Corporate Industry and  institutions.  IIT Jodhpur  hosted around 30 CXO level  executives across 20 Industries over a span  of three days.

About the Author

Dr. Anuj Pal Kapoor
Assistant Professor
School of Management & Entrepreneurship, IIT Jodhpur
anujkapoor@iitj.ac.in

37th National Symposium on Plasma Science & Technology (PLASMA-2022)

Department of Physics, IIT Jodhpur in association with the Plasma Science Society of India (PSSI)

The  37th National Symposium on  Plasma Science  & Technology   (PLASMA-2022)  was   successfully  organized by the  Department of  Physics,   IIT Jodhpur  in  association with  the  Plasma Science  Society  of India  (PSSI) from  12th-14th December 2022. The  aim  was  to motivate and  provide adequate exposure to both  young  and  senior researchers working in various areas of plasma science and  technology. The symposium included keynote address, plenary talks, invited  talks   by  eminent  scientists  along   with   oral   and poster presentations by the  research scholars and  other participants. The  symposium provided a forum for  young researchers in the  area  of Plasma Science  & Technology to interact with eminent plasma scientists from India and could present their research work.  Participation was  there from various R&D Labs  of DAE, CSIR, DRDO, ISRO, DST, DEIT, and  academic institutes like IITs, Central Universities, NITs, various engineering colleges, etc.

The  theme of the  PLASMA-2022 National Symposium was ‘Plasma  Technologies for  Sustainable Development’.  In  the era of the 21st Century, modern technologies have helped in ease of doing things. Despite our continued efforts, FEAR is all around. The growing population and  meeting the  resources for humankind in a sustainable manner is the key challenge. The  scarcity of foods,  increasing health risks,  depletion  of modern energy fuels,  environmental  damage due  to  high carbon emission, etc. are  some  of the  concerns. It is a firm belief that  cutting-edge plasma technologies can provide solutions for FEAR (i.e., Food/Health, Energy  & Agriculture Retrievals). The  scope   of  the  symposium includes front- line  research in basic  plasma physics as well as significant advances in plasma technology. 

While  inaugurating  the   symposium  with   record  around 450  delegates  from   all  over   India,   the   Chief   Guest   and the   former Atomic  Energy   Commission Chairman and Principal Scientific Advisor  to  Government of India,  Dr  R Chidambaram emphasized the   need   to  focus   on  Plasma Science  and Technologies in view of their multifarious game changing potential. He said  plasma science and  technology have the capacity to bring about vast changes in diverse fields from  power generation to  health, and  from  agriculture to manufacturing. He talked about the  contributions made by the Indian Scientists in the field of Controlled Thermonuclear Fusion  and  mentioned that  a big  scope  exists  for  India  to contribute Internationally in this  highly  demanding area  of research.

Dr Chidambaram appreciated IIT Jodhpur’s initiative, under the leadership of Prof. Santanu Chaudhury, to start an integrated graduate ‘BS’ course involving  both  science and technology aspects. He asked students to take this opportunity and  chose  Plasma Science  and  Technology in  the  interest of their career and  India.  While welcoming the  guests,  IIT Jodhpur Director Prof  Santanu Chaudhury also  mentioned that  this  BS initiative will be  extended to  encourage study and  research in Plasma Science  and  Technologies soon.  He further mentioned that  a very  active  group is working on Plasma Science  and  Technologies at IIT Jodhpur and  the  BS program at  IIT Jodhpur  will have  special attraction in  the coming time.  He said that  the first product from  IIT Jodhpur TISC was  also  based  on  Cold  Plasma Technology and  IITJ is going  to  expand this  area  of research and  development. Students and Indian industries will be highly benefited

Former Sr. Professor Institute for Plasma Research, Bhat Gandhinagar and Advisor ITER-India, Prof. YC Saxena addressing the  assembly said  that  Plasma science and technology are  likely to play very important role in diverse fields  and  India  must invest  significantly in  education and research in  this   domain in  order not  to  be  left  behind. He  further said  that  we  should also  not  be  behind in  the Controlled Thermonuclear Fusion  Program in  comparison to the other world.  If we do not have enough technology base, we may come  in trouble once  this  long-awaited technology will be available worldwide for commercial usage.

Former Sr.  Professor of PRL Ahmedabad and  President  of Buti  Foundation, Prof.  Bimla  Buti  said  the  Buti  foundation has  instituted a few awarded to  recognize the  outstanding works done  by the  students and  scientists in  the  area  of Plasma Science  & Technology. She went  back when  PSSI was formed by a group of scientists and  shared happy  memories of the  plasma science and  technology development in India. She wishes to encourage more and  more women scientists in  the  country and  expressed her  willingness to  institute further awards for women at IIT Jodhpur.

There  was   an   overwhelming  response   for   this   three- days  symposium and  there were  prospective National delegates  including  renowned   scientists,   technologists, young  researchers and  university faculties. The symposium consisted of 12 sessions of which  there were  9 oral  sessions and  three poster sessions. Overall,  there were  around 490 presentations  including 1  keynote address, 1  plenary talk, 16 invited talks,  27 oral  talks,  5-Buti  Young Scientist Award Presentations,  4   Distinguished  Award   Presentations   of PSSI as  well  as  440  poster presentations. There were  416 registered participants to the  symposium and  also  around 60 local participants. 

During  the   symposium  Four   National  Awards   related  to Plasma Science & Technology were presented. Parvez Guzdar Award-2022 was  received by Dr.  Pradeep Kayshap,  School of Advanced  Science  & Languages, VIT Bhopal  University, Sehore, M.P. on  his  work  related to  “On Probing the  Solar Plasma Processes  through  UV/EUV Spectroscopy”.  Jaidutt Saraswati Sodha  PSSI Plasma Award-2022 was  received by Dr. Ram Prakash, Department of Physics,  Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur on his outstanding work related to “Low Temperature Plasma Applications for Societal  Benefits”  and

 by Dr. Pintu  Bandyopadhyay, Institute for Plasma Research, Bhat, Gandhinagar, Gujarat for his outstanding work  related to “Experiments in complex plasmas”. Z. H. Sholapurwala Award-2022  was  received  by  Dr.  Vishant   Gahlaut, Department of Physical  Sciences, Banasthali Vidyapith, Banasthali, Rajasthan on  his  work  related to  “Analysis  of Space   Travelling  Wave  Tubes   Based   on  Thermal  Issues”. There were  also  two  best  oral  presentation awards and  six best poster presentation awards given.

BUTI  Young   Scientist  Award-2022  was   received  by  Dr. Nandini Yadav,  Nirma  University Ahmedabad on  her  work related to “Understanding the  Physical  Processes Prevailingun  the  Edge  Plasma Region  of ADITYA-U Tokamak using Spectroscopic Measurements” and  Dr. Ajaz Mir, IIT Jammu on  his  work  related to  “Synchronization of  Dust  Acoustic Waves in a Forced Korteweg-de Vries-Burgers Model”

A Plasma Exhibition was also  organized at IIT Jodhpur Campus  in   Jodhpur   Club.   It  was   a  scientific  outreach program by the Institute for Plasma Research with the theme “An interactive peak into the fascinating world of plasma”. No better prays  one can receive than the  direct beneficiaries. A comment received from a B. Tech First Student Ms. Vidhi Jain (B22AI042), IIT Jodhpur is as follows.The  exhibition was  awesome, I came  to  know  that  fire  is plasma! That’s   why  due   to  high   voltage,   maybe   a  spark(fire)   is produced, and till there is spark, there is electricity since fire must be a conductor! 

I’m familiar with  fire since  childhood but didn’t  think about its fourth state of matter.

Wow…………  

Around 1000  students and  teachers from  local schools and colleges  across Jodhpur have  witnessed the  exhibition and participated in different activities such  as, quizzes, popular talks,  training as  exhibitor, etc.  IIT Jodhpur students were trained to explain the plasma experiments.

A thrilling cultural evening performance by Bacchu  Khan Langa  and   Kalunath Kalbelia  Groups was  also  organized during the  symposium for  cultural mix-up. Bachu  Khan’s high-pitched, open-throated, very powerful voice, supported by the  backing vocalists was perfectly complemented by the woodwind and  string instruments, making a melodious and sensuous musical score. Dances really showed the energy of women in Rajasthan.

The  entire activity  was  organized in  physical mode  by the faculties and  students of IIT Jodhpur. Dr. Ram Prakash, Associate Professor, Department  of  Physics  was  the Convenor of the symposium.

The gamut of top scientists comprised of: 

Keynote  Address by Prof.  Avinash  Khare,  Vice-Chancellor,

IUMRS-ICA 2022
19th - 23rd December 2022

IUMRS-ICA 2022

The International Union of Materials Research Society- International Conference in Asia 2022 (IUMRS-ICA 2022) was organized at Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur during 19th – 23rd December 2022. The event  was jointly  organized by the  International Union  of Material Research Society, Material Research Society  of India,  and  Indian Institute  of Technology, Jodhpur, with  funding support from  various government and  private sponsors, namely, SERB, BARC, BRNS, CSIR, DRDO, Zeiss,  Simco,  Quantum Design,  Laser Science, Tektronix, Malvern  Panalytical, Lab India,  Anargya Innotech. Around 700 delegates from  across the world attended the conference.

Over the  five days, i.e., from  19th - 23rd December 2022, the conference offered a platform for global exchange of cutting- edge  research and  development as well as the  identification of unmet research requirements and possibilities in all areas of material science. This conference provided the  attendees with  an  exposure to  some  of the  most  recent advances in material science and  provided a platform for intellectual exchange with  leading researchers on  the  national and international levels.  Also, it facilitated possibilities for research collaboration between researchers from  the emerging institutes  and   established/recognized scientists in India  and  overseas. Likewise,  the  young  generation had an  opportunity to  be  inspired and  encouraged to  pursue basic   and   material  scientific research  and   development. Senior scientists operating in India  and  abroad, as well  as the  invited speakers, anticipated future collaborations and guidance related to the research work. 

The  IUMRS-ICA  2022  programme  included  cutting-edge R&D topics on  materials, devices, and  related applications with  different functional materials for semiconductors, energy, organic and  flexible,  2D, graphene and  beyond graphene, III-V and  II-VI, computational, optoelectronic, biodegradable, biomaterials, soft,  nature inspired, neuro- inspired, quantum computing, sensing, emerging memory, biomedical, hybrid and  biomass, advanced structural; and related applications. 

Prof.   Mahesh  Kumar,    Chair-IUMRS,  gave   the   opening address and Prof. Santanu Chaudhury, Director, IIT Jodhpur, delivered a welcome address  in  which  he  emphasized on the  role of such  conferences in researchers’ career and  was followed  by speech by Prof. P.S. Anil Kumar,  Secretary-MRSI, which  gave brief insights about the MRSI. 

Prof. S. B. Krupanidhi delivered the inaugural address, Prof. Rodrigo  Martins, President-IUMRS and  European Academy of Sciences delivered the  Presidential Address, followed  by the  official  release of the  conference abstract booklet. The opening ceremony of the  conference concluded with  a vote of thanks by Prof. S.P. Tiwari, Co-Chair-IUMRS-ICA 2022.

The  conference  included  76  invited  talks,   54  oral presentations, 5 plenary talks  from  eminent scientists/ professors/industry  professionals, 12 MRSI medal  lecture talks,  4 G. C. Jain lectures for  the  best  thesis award and  2 nominated student project proposal presentations which were  scheduled in parallel sessions. Besides, more than 550 participants showcased their research work  through poster presentations. 

The   conference  was   designed  to   promote  conversation among attendees about the main topics of the semiconducting material and   devices. This  was  accomplished by  holding short-answer questions, full-group discussions among participants,  and   small-group  discussions with   speakers after each session, and the conversations flowed through the breaks too. Each day’s conversations were  summarized in a group reflection period at the end. 

Highlighting the  rich  culture and  flavor of Rajasthan, the conference facilitated moments of relaxation to the delegates and attendees by way of the local dance and folklore programs presented by the local artists on the second day of the event, followed  by a banquet dinner hosted on the third day of the conference.

The MRSI had  nominated eminent researchers who had breakthroughs in the field of the materials sciences and were awarded  with   medals acknowledging their  contribution. Prof.  Judith Driscoll  from  the  Cambridge University, UK, received the  “MRSI Silver  Jubilee  International Medal”  for her outstanding work in the past decade. Prof. G.U. Kulkarni from   IISC  Bangalore  was   awarded  with   the   prestigious “CNR Rao  Prize  in  Advance  Materials”.   Prof.  D.D. Sarma from  IISC Bangalore was honored with the title  of “MRSI Distinguished Material Scientist of the  year” along  with  the medal.  Prof.  Kulamani Parida from  Centre for Nanoscience and   Technology,  Bhubaneshwar,  and   Dr.  Tata   Narasinga Rao from  ARCI, Hyderabad, were  awarded with  “MRSI Material Science  Annual  Prize”.    Further, 12 MRSI medals were  presented to young  professors and  scientists who  are actively contributing in their field across the country. 

Also,  ACS publications  has  proudly sponsored  nine   Best Poster awards and   IOP  publishing house  sponsored  two best  poster awards in IUMRS with  a cash  prize  of Rs. 3000 and  Rs. 5000,  respectively, to each  selected best  presenters. Students participated  actively   in  the   poster presentation and  were  awarded with  the  certificates and  cheques by the sponsoring agencies. 

The  conference ended on a very positive note  with  session ceremony, which was jointly chaired by Prof. P. S. Anil Kumar and  Prof.  S. B. Krupanidhi, who  thanked the  participants and  speakers for  their contribution to  the  conference and for  making it  a grand event.  Medal  awardees, best  poster presenters and volunteers received a huge round of applause from  the  audience, and  a note  of commitment from  Drs. Mahesh Kumar  and  S. P. Tiwari  to provide possible support to the researchers interested in this field. 

Aluminium-Iron Intermetallic Batteries: A new

Ayan Dey, Ghanshyam Varshney and Srijan Sengu

Global  Warming has  become a major concern throughout the  world.  To  mitigate the  issue  of  climate   change,   we need    large  scale  development as  well  as  implementation of the  energy policy, which  steps us towards reducing CO2 emissions. Battery technology is one such domain that offers a sustainable and  reliable supply  chain  (grid  storage) based on renewable resources. 

There are different types  of batteries among which  lithium- ion battery has  got more attention due  to its higher energy density (LCO, NMC), high  discharge power (LTO), high coulombic efficiencies (LCO, LTO) as well as long life cycle (LFP). This  important characteristic leads  the  device  for remarkable development in the  applications of portable, flexible electronics and to some  extent in the EV market. 

India  is  an  ideal  playfield   for  Li-ion batteries.  India  has very  high  oil prices (Petrol~  106 INR/ Lt.) with  the  lowest electricity prices per  unit  (INR 8/kWh) which  make  EVs penetrate  the   Indian  market  very  easily.   Further,  India has  a renewable energy capacity of 150 GW and  targeting a whooping 500 GW by 2030 which  is impractical without a massive uprising in the battery industry. 

However, India does not produce Li-ion batteries and rely on Chinese imports. Most of these batteries are  designed and calibrated to function best  at a temperature range of 25-30

OC (European condition) and fail prematurely when  applied to Indian conditions (45-50 OC). The funny  part is that  the performance (car acceleration, speed, pick up) of the battery enhances due  to  enhanced  diffusion at  high  temperature (making the  user  think the  battery is working fine) but  the longevity drastically drops increasing battery replacement and maintenance cost.

Radiation Hardening in Modern Chip Design for Mission Critical Space

Mohd Sakib Ansari and Bhupendra Singh Reniwal

In the  modern era,  different types  of memories are  used  in electronic devices. Static random access memories (SRAMs) are the most significantly used memory in electronic circuits and  systems. As process technology continuously shrinks, results in a rapid shrinking in the size of the memory cell [1]. As a result, the  capacitance of the  storage node  decreases, lowering the  charge stored at the  memory cell’s individual node.  When  heavy  energy particles like protons, neutrons, or  alpha  particles strike a particular node,  they  create an electron-hole pair,  at the  particular node.  This charge gets accumulated at the  storage node  and  causes the  bit to flip and  leads  to severe reliability issues such  errors called  soft errors. 

Soft errors (SE) are  caused by natural radiation or decaying radioactive impurities present in packaging. In addition, in the mission critical space  environment, this  error occurs in a circuit when  a heavy particle such  as neutron, proton, and alpha  particle strikes a circuit node  then it gets some  sort  of distortion, and that  distortion is called  a single  event  upset. Soft   errors  are    caused  by   high-energy   cosmic  rays, alpha    particles,   and  neutron-induced boron fission.  One of the very common SE is single event upset (SEU). In case of a single  event  upset, the  value  stored in a circuit generally changes from  1-0 or 0-1. This is called  a bit flip. So, when  a particle strikes a particular node  of a circuit, then it changes its state. When an upset occurs in a combinational circuit, it is referred to as a Single Event Transient (SET). If the  same happens in a specific  location of the memory, it is known as Single Event Upset (SEU). 

Fig 1 shows  how the  soft error affects  the  (a) combinational and  sequential circuit (b) SEU can  affect  various memory nodes, which   is  known as  a  Single  Event  Multiple   Node Upset  (SEMNU) [2][3]. Here  BL and  BLS      are  Bitline  and complementary bit lines,  respectively,  Vdd is the  supply voltage,  and Q and QB are the data storage nodes. Therefore there  is  an   apparent  urgency to   address the   soft   error mitigation/handling  design  in modern electronics. Such designs are typically  called  radiation hardened designs. Fig.

2 illustrates the  different Radiation Hardened Techniques. Radiation hardening  can  be divided  into two broad groups.

References

About the Authors

Mutually Benefiting Nanoaggregates for Improvised Theranostics

Raviraj Vankayala and Antony Vincy

Cancer is one of the leading diseases which  severely effects the  mortality rates in humans. To tackle  any type of cancer, there are  two  major steps: (1)  utilize  a diagnostic imaging modality to precisely locate and analyse the size of the tumor; (2) initiation and  monitoring the  therapeutic outcomes. Nanotheranostics, defines a nanosystem which  can function as both  diagnostic and  therapeutic modalities. Particularly in   the    field   of   cancer,  nanotheranostics  development has  evolved  to  be  very  promising as  it  can  perform both imaging and  therapy in a single  multifunctional system. To this  end,  light  activated theranostics provides an  excellent opportunity with  superior spatiotemporal control and deeper tissue penetration [1][2] [3]. 

Among  all the  available  imaging modalities, near infrared (NIR) imaging has  evolved  as  an  excellent imaging system because of the  superior tissue penetration depths and transparency it offers.  Since  NIR rays  are  not  absorbed by any anatomical tissues or organs, they penetrate easily as if through a transparent membrane. Indocyanine green (ICG) is  one  such  amphiphilic NIR dye  which  is  FDA approved with  absorbance maxima at 720 nm  and  780 nm,  popularly used  for NIR imaging. Moreover, ICG is also and therapeutic agent with  capability of photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT). Although ICG was  very successful, administration of ICG in  vivo was  challenging [4]. This is because ICG has a strong affinity towards plasma proteins and  binds to them. Also, they  are  rapidly cleared from  the  system and  undergo photobleaching upon  light exposure. With  such  shortcomings, the  administration  of ICG falls below the expected level of effectiveness. 

Chemotherapy, the “gold standard” of cancer is the first line of therapy in almost all types  of cancer [5]. Regardless of thesevere side  effects,  chemo has become an inevitable step  in the treatment of cancer. Cisplatin (CDDP) is an FDA approved platinum based  chemotherapeutic agent which  destroys cancer cells  by interfering with  the  DNA mechanisms [6]. CDDP has been proven to be effective in multiple cancers but unfortunately the  structure of CDDP does  not  favour  good aqueous solubility. Given the  poor  hydrophilicity, CDDP be administered only in low doses which risks  the development of tumour resistance. Also, higher doses  cannot be used  for treatment as it will worsen the systemic side effects  [6][7]. 

Considering the  foible  characteristics of  ICG  and  CDDP, in this  research study,  we have tried and  successfully developed for  the  first  time,  a nanoaggregate comprising the  above  described NIR dye, ICG and  chemo agent, CDDP. When CDDP intercalates with ICG, it results in the formation of ordered aggregates which  are  refereed as  indocyanine green J-aggregates  (IJA) which  are  highly  photostable. The formation of IJA is characterised by a new peak formation at 896  nm   [8][9]. On  the   other hand, as  CDDP  is  between ICG molecules forming an  aggregate, the  ICG shields the structural property of CDDP. This  results in improved solubility of CDDP. Mutually,  ICG protects  a   carts CDDP while   CDDP  holds   together ICG  molecules maintain the ordered aggregate structure of IJA. IJA, as a single component if administered can  now serve  as a multifunctional chemo, PTT,  PDT and  NIR imaging agent. Most  importantly, this aggregate reduces  the  systemic toxicity   as  the  it  is  light activated.  Upon   NIR  light   activation,  the  photothermal heat  of ICG will disintegrate the  aggregate into  individual molecules for their potent theranostic effect [10].

 

References

About the Authors 

The Hegemony of Happiness or Why it?s OK to be Sad

Prasenjeet Tribhuvan

‘Hegemon’  is  another word  for  King.  A simple search on Google  tells  us  that  it also  means a ‘supreme leader ’. But in this  article, I shall  stick to King. I designate happiness as

‘King’ because our  desire to be happy  dictates our  lifestyle, influences  our    major  life   decisions,  transgresses   into our  everyday lives and  personal relationships, and  most importantly, makes us feel truly,  excruciatingly sad.  Let me make  it clear  at the  outset that  I am not  a psychologist by a long shot,  and this article does not tell you how to be happy. On the  contrary, it argues that  it’s ok to be sad  for most  of our  lives  and  not  necessarily feel  guilty  about it.    First  of all, happiness, like  most  other emotions is as much social as  it is psychological and  physiological. The  modern need to be always  happy  is partially socially  constructed and  we should understand that  all things socially  constructed can be by their very nature fragile,  faulty and  subject to change. They may appear natural and  stable to us, but they are  not, and  there lies their power of deception and  their ability  to influence. Things,   ideas,   notions and  processes generally have  an  ability  to hide  social  relations and  structures that empower them. That is why most socially constructed truths appear as  natural facts  to  us.  The  point here is  that  our desire to be happy  may not  be as natural as we may think it is. Taussig  (2001), borrowing from  Marx’s terminology invokes  this   ability   of  socially   created  truths  that   are almost always  empowered by social hierarchies and  long standing discrimination to appear to us as natural facts  as ‘fetish’.  One example of a socio-natural fetish  that  has  also historically intrigued and  subjugated us posing as a natural fact is Beauty. The notions of what  it means to be ‘beautiful’ have  changed across centuries and  all of them seemed intrinsically natural  to  those who  believed  in  them. For example, for  most  societies in  medieval times, when  food production was always  a matter of concern, the  conception of  being   beautiful held  by  a  majority was  to  be  fat  and bountiful. Today, being  thin  and  athletic may be considered as naturally beautiful by many.  What this  essentially means is that  notions about beauty, which  is considered by most  as a natural disposition of the human body is to a great extent a result of processes that  are historical and social and hence our notions of beauty are prime examples of ‘culture’ posing as ‘nature’. 

Are  there  any  social   processes  that   are   at  least   partly responsible for the  importance that  we devote to happiness in our  society,  for  the  relentless pursuit of happiness that poses  as a singular aim  of living  our  social  and  individual lives  today?   Lash  and   Lury  (2007),  Appadurai (1996) and others have written about how capitalism may be complicit in restructuring the value we give to different emotions and affects.  Capitalism strives to  be  relevant by  creating and sustaining desire. It has sustained itself by nurturing a need for  commodities in the  masses. For  decades organizations have  been  selling  us  cars,  aerated sweetened water, food, and   thousands  of  other  products.    However, as  far   as physical commodities go there is only so much that  one can buy and there is a chance of either the public  being satisfied with  what   they  have,  or  being   saturated with  too  much stuff.  There was  a marked shift  in  strategy typically  after the 1960s, when  organizations realized that  there was much profit to  make   not  by  selling   commodities alone,   but  by selling  emotions and  values  (Mazarella 2003). For example, it was  not  enough to say the  Marlboro cigarettes had  good taste, or that  they gave you that  nicotine kick that  your body craved for. It was much profitable to say that  smoking a Marlboro will make  you manly,  and  that  it is important to be  manly,  especially considering that  cigarettes harm you (shouldn’t real men  be able to play with such  dangers?). Marlboro didn’t  only sell cigarettes, it sold  masculinity and particular ideas of masculinity and made hundreds of crores while  doing  so.  Companies realized that  once  you  pursue and  exploit  the  labyrinth of emotions and  values  that  make up  the  human mind  and  structure our  societies, there  is no  stopping to what  they  can  sell and  how  much they  can sell.  Happiness proved to  be  one  of  the  most   profitable emotions because it can  be at once  personal and  social,  it is  ambiguous enough to  be  exploited and  conceptualized in ways that  could  make  it sellable, and  it’s a state of being that  most  of humanity has  experienced and  hence it is not difficult  to  create an  insatiable craving for  it.  Hence,  the reign  of   happiness  as  the   sigma   emotion was  brought onto    us   by   powerful organizations who have the  money and  means to one,  coax us to believe  that  the  sole purpose of life is to be happy  and  two, to create social constructions of happiness that  are  conducive to  sustain capitalism and propagate them unceasingly. One  glance  at the  plethora of advertisements today  tells  us how commodities are  sold  to us not  as things in themselves but  as promises to generate happiness (for  eg.  see  fig. 1).  Social  media proved to  be  a natural ally for this  process as the  general public  (or the consumers)   themselves  started  marketing  happiness  as most  significant of emotions for life to thrive and  to exist. One look at Facebook profiles tells  us how we have become unwitting  consumers  and   advertisers  for   happiness  as we  sift  through smiling photos of people getting married, getting  promotions,  buying   cars,   presenting  papers  and travelling to dream destinations. All other emotions take  a backseat, since  very few people post  photographs that  may display  other emotions – like a divorce, a rejection or even a boring day at work.  The commoditization of happiness and its rise  as the  prime human emotion is a gift that  keeps  on giving as far as capitalism is concerned. It has now given rise to the  well-being industry spawning crores of rupees with organizations and  individuals guaranteeing happiness to us for a handsome amount of money. Another process that runs complementary to the  reign of happiness is creation and propagation of particular meanings of happiness by telling us how we can achieve  it. For example, notions of success and happiness have come to be embedded together and it almost always  means that  to  be  happy  you  have  to  be  successful. With  success itself  being  open  to  social  interpretations, it opens up new  avenue for powerful organizations to exploit us, while at the same  time sell things to us.

To  reiterate my  point, the   primacy of  happiness as  the most   significant  and   sought after   of  all    emotions  is  a social  construction  made by  and   for  a  capitalist society. Even   acursory  reading  of  other  traditions tells   us  that not   every   culture  gives   this   primacy  to  happiness.  For example, Buddhistic traditions give a special recognition to suffering as one   of   the   most    important  emotions that has   ensured  humanity’s sustenance and  well-being. Being at  peace  does  not  essentially mean being  happy, it means that  you  have  accepted that  there is going  to  be  suffering and  that  it is an important and  inalienable part of our  lives to  suffer  (Obeysekere  1985).  Nietzche (1890) declares that the  ubermensch or the  superman is the  individual who has stared into the depths of our existence and has realized that essence of life is contradiction and  suffering and  is OK with it. While it’s impossible to be a Superwoman or a Superman (and it’s advisable to try not to be one), the aim of this article was to uncover, to some  extent, the veil of happiness posing as the primary aspirational way of being by locating it within the current political economy. Peace, as they say, after all lies hidden somewhere in social theory. 

References

About the Authors  

Study of Environmental Stability on Hybrid Flexible Resistive Random A

Shalu Saini, Anurag Dwivedi, Anil Lodhi, Arpit Khandelwal, and Shree Prakash Tiwari

The urge  for flexible,  wearable, and  light  weight electronic devices has  increased the  demand for flexible  emerging memory devices [1]. Resistive  random-access  memory (RRAM) is  an  excellent choice   for  emerging memory technology in comparison to the other emerging non-volatile memory devices for flexible electronics due to fast switching operation, low power consumption, and CMOS compatibility [2, 3]. Some  of the  challenges in   RRAM development are - cycle  to  cycle  variation,  device   to  device   variation on the   same   substrate,  forming voltage,   and   environmental stability.  By considering  these  challenges, the   fabricated flexible  hybrid RRAM device  is observed as a forming free and  highly  stable in the  environment. The hybrid memory structures, a  combination of  organic polymer composite and inorganic metal  oxides,   are preferred for flexible RRAM due  to  multidata storage capability, forming free  devices and  higher reliability [4]. Hybrid PVK:MoS2/TiO2 bilayer switching based   flexible  RRAM is  studied in  this  article. The poly N-vinylcarbazole (PVK) polymer with  most  widely used   2D material  molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) improve the  mechanical stability and  switching performance of the device.

The schematic structure and digital image of (Ag/MoS :PVK/atomic layer deposition process. The PVK:MoS switching TiO /Ag) fabricated hybrid RRAM are shown in the Fig: 1(a) and (b). The device is fabricated on the ITO coated PEN substrate; ITO is considered as Bottom electrode (BE). A thin TiO (10 nm) metal oxide was deposited over the BE by using layer is made using liquid exfoliation method [4]. Finally, top electrodes of Ag (~200nm) were deposited using thermal evaporation

The   I-V  characteristics  of  fabricated  RRAM device   are shown in Fig. 2(a). To study  the  environmental stability, the device  was  kept  at  the  room temperature and  electrically characterized on the  first  day after  fabrication, followed  by 3rd, 6th, 10th, and  11th   month. A voltage  sweep  -3V to 0 to 2V was applied across the  electrodes. The fabricated flexible devices require very low SET and  RESET voltages (1.2 V and -1.5 V) to switch the  memory state. It can  be seen  from  Fig. 2(a), even after  11 month of fabrication the device operates at same voltage sweep without any significant degradation. The On/Off  current ratio  at 0.2 V read voltage  is plotted in Fig.2(b). It was found  that  on/off  current ratio  is maintained up to 6 months. After 10th, and  11th  month device  start degrade slightly due to defects.

RRAM device is fabricated. It is showing very low voltages for SET and  RESET (1.2 V and  -1.5 V) without any requirement of higher formation voltage. The environmental stability was studied on  the  fabricated  devices, which   shows   excellent stability up to six months without any significant degradation. Moreover, these devices exhibit an excellent environmental stability with  decent on/off  current ratio, which  makes this bilayer hybrid memory as an excellent choice  for large  area electronics and flexible electronics

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Resistive Switching Behavior of PVP:GO/ TiOX Bilayer Based Resistive R

Anil Lodhi, Shalu Saini, Anurag Dwivedi, Arpit Khandelwal, and Shree Prakash Tiwari

In this  article, Graphene oxide  (GO):poly(4-vinylphenol) (PVP)/ Titanium oxide  (TiOX) bilayer resistive switching behavior based  Resistive  Random Access  Memory (ReRAM) devices are  exhibited. It was observed that  adding a 2D material, such  as graphene oxide, to the  organic polymer serving as  the  switching layer  significantly    improves the bipolar  resistive      switching  behavior.  Ag/PVP:GO/TiOx/ FTO-structured ReRAM components demonstrated a high ON/OFF current ratio  (ION/IOFF), low voltage operation, and long retention times.

Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor  (CMOS) transistors have  been  shrinking in  size  over  the  years,  as Gordon Moore  predicted that  the  number of transistors on a computer chip  would  double every  two  years.  Transistor scaling  mostly  increase the  frequency so the  speed of computation is very high. When we increase the frequency of the  computer, it also increases the  power density. The new ReRAM-based computer architecture is widely  recognised as a viable alternative to the von Neumann architecture, and it holds   the  potential to deal  with  the  issues of the  neural network and  big data  era. No other technology has recorded fast  switching, low  power, and  stable operation all  at  the same  time as ReRAM device [1].

ReRAM is  essentially a  two-terminal  passive device  with an  dielectric switching layer  sandwiched between the  two electrically conducting electrodes. The  functionality of ReRAM is based  on a resistive switching mechanism, which is a physical phenomenon and  depends on the  capabilities of the  material. An external bias  is  used  to  modulate the resistivity, which  helps  in the  realization of low resistance and   high   resistance  states  (LRS  and   HRS).  Based   on the   switching  mechanism,  ReRAM  can   be   classified as 

filamentary and  interfacial ReRAM. The filamentary ReRAM works on the formation and rupture of a conductive filament (CF). ReRAM’s switching entirely depends upon  formation of CF. CF is a crucial component of ReRAM as it joins  the memory  cell’s  top   and   bottom  electrodes.  Disconnected filament results in a HRS, while connected, it yields LRS with high conductivity [2-4] 

Fig. 1 shows  the  schematic diagram of the  fabricated device with  PVP:GO and  TiOX as the  active  layer  in between  the silver   (Ag) and   fluorine  doped  tin   oxide  (FTO) as the top electrode (TE) and bottom electrode (BE), respectively hence it is called  Ag/PVP:GO/TiOX/FTO structure device.  Fig. 2(a) shows   the  I-V  characteristics  exhibiting a  change in  the current or  change in  resistance. When  we  apply  a voltage sweep to the TE with the BE grounded, which is ranging from 0 V à 2 V à 0 V, then the current suddenly changes at 1 V, a condition known as a abrupt set  or the  HRS change to LRS position. When a voltage  sweep  from  0 V to -2.5 V is applied, the  current is progressively reduced between ~-1.8 V to ~-2 V then the  device  switches from  the  LRS to HRS. Retention time for more than 7000 s at read voltage of -0.2 V is depicted in Fig. 2(b).

In  conclusion, we  propose a  bilayer ReRAM consisting a TiO and  PVP:GO based  thin  layer  for  resistive switching behavior. The  choice  of 2D material is  critical for  charge trapping leading to resistive switching, and   the   proposed ReRAM device has high I OFF (>103) and the low voltage function with  a long retention duration. Eventually, ReRAM devices have great potential for future data storage, internet of things, and neuromorphic applications

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