Every birthday or anniversary is significant, particularly for institutions like IIT Bombay (IITB). The 60th anniversary of IITB’s founding day, our Diamond Jubilee, is this special occasion that we have been celebrating at IITB over the past year. A Diamond Jubilee comes at a critical juncture in the history of an institution that has just celebrated the Golden Jubilee in a grand manner only a decade back, and where the upcoming Platinum Jubilee and Centenary celebrations shimmer enticingly ahead.
Sixty years is but a short time in the history of any university or institute when compared to the many centuries that many leading educational and research institutions of the word have endured. Still, in these short 60 years, IIT Bombay has proven to be the leading Institute of India on many fronts and that of the World too. Therefore, when the IITB leadership decided to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee, a conscious effort was made by them to initiate a few key events and activities from amongst the many that the IITB-DJ Celebration Committee had suggested. It was decided that these events and activities would be executed through various Task Forces (TF) led by Institute functionaries like Deputy Directors, Deans and Heads, and, moreover, they would be funded internally without any special fund raising efforts, but with special emphasis to introspect, to assess impact, and to reconnect to all stakeholders.
To mention just a few of the events and activities, here is a short list: a Task Force led by the Dean (Alumni and Corporate Relations) had very successful series of reunion meetings for alumni in several cities of India and also in the USA; a Task Force led by the Dy Director (AIA) facilitated a series of marquee conferences that every Department and Centre of IITB could take advantage of. These were meant to take stock of where the Departments/Centres currently were, academically and research-wise, and where they wanted to be in the next decade. A task force led by the Dean (IPS) re-examined long-pending infrastructure projects and reprioritized several like the community centre and crèche-expansion that would benefit all campus residents. A TF led by Dy Director (FEA) and Registrar initiated a scheme for scholarships to staff children; a TF led by Dean (SA) organized several social and cultural programs, and added special activities or events to the traditional ones; a TF led by Dean (R&D) organized a TedX event on campus; other TFs organized activities for students at the KV and Campus schools on campus; the Central Librarian organized activities like story-telling for campus kids; and a TF led by the Director began a significant study into the economic and social impact that IITB has had over the last sixty years. This impact survey and report would in itself be a landmark lasting outcome of IITB’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
As part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, IIT Bombay had organized a half-day deliberation on Defense Technologies on 17 May 2018. Rear Admiral V.M. Doss, VSM, ACNS(Air Materiel), Naval HQs was the Chief Guest for the event, which was held in the Fourth Floor Conference Room, VMCC, IIT Bombay.
The event kicked off with Dr. Devang Khakhar, Director, IIT Bombay, welcoming the Chief Guest and all the dignitaries. This was followed by presentations from NCAIR, CoEST, CEN, and Research Park giving an overview of the research activities and industry collaborations undertaken by the respective centers at IIT Bombay. Dr. Patri, Director, Naval Material Research Labs (NMRL), also gave an overview of the research activities at NMRL.
Rear Admiral Doss was introduced to the participants by Prof. Amol Gokhale. Rear Admiral shared his thoughts on Relevance of Indigenization and Role of Academia in Defense and highlighted the expectations of Indian Navy from IIT Bombay and the Industry.
Industry representatives from Bharat Forge, L&T Defense, Applied Materials and others had an opportunity to interact with Rear Admiral Doss following his talk. Prof. Anil Kulkarni gave the Vote of Thanks to the gathered participants to conclude the event.
The event was well received with over 30 participants representing more than 10 industries attending the event. The photos of the event for your perusal at the following links:
Pre-Inaugural Function of IIT Bombay's Diamond Jubilee Celebrations began with Raagadarshan, an evening of musical dialogue on March 9, 2018.
The musical dialogue included performance of eminent Hindustani vocal maestro Padmashri Pt. Ajoy Chakrabarty and his able disciples Mr. Purbayan Chatterjee (on sitar), Mr. Kaustav Kanti Ganguli (vocal), Pt. Yogesh Samsi (on tabla) and Mr. Ajay Joglekar (on harmonium).
On the eve of the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations of the Indian Institute of.
Technology, Bombay, Central Library is organizing Storytelling and Story Writing Sessions for the campus children.
Details of the event is given below:-
Workshop: Storytelling and Story Writing
Speaker: Ms. Nupur Aggarwal, www.storywallah.com
Date and Timings: 21 July 2018, Saturday, 10.00 hrs to 12.30 pm hrs
Venue: First Floor, Central Library
The Diamond Jubilee Celebration Cell had organized a workshop dedicated to poetry & all forms of music, followed by a special program by the expert faculties named ‘Maifil Shabd suranchi’… It was organized in accordance with the campus school of IIT Powai during the Diwali vacation [12th to 24th November2018] An eminent personality of the field of classical music & senior disciple of Pt. Padmakar Barve, - Mr. Rajeev Barve, his wife & former chairperson of the 27th Balsahitya Sammelan Pune, Dr. Sangeeta Barve and their daughter Singer, composer Ms. Pranjali Barve were invited for the conduction of the 3 day workshop.
The workshop was conducted in P.C. Saxena Auditorium of the IIT campus. 33 students of std.3rd to 10th studying in campus school attended the workshop. Students were made to read the poems from the textbooks as well as from the books they distributed to the participants. They were introduced different forms of poetry and made to understand the styles of recitation. They were also given preliminary information of the form of classical music along with demonstration by Mr. Rajeev Barve & Pranjali Barve. Students were enjoying the self exploratory tasks as they were encouraged to perform directly over the stage & write their own poetries. They were guided with the performing skills & the essence of Marathi & Hindi syntax.
A 6 Day Dramatics workshop was also conducted before the poetry workshop. 4 Actors & directors, dialogue writers of the Hindi film & theatre industry were invited to conduct the workshop namely Mr. Debanshu Shekhar, Mr. Ashwani kumar, Mr. Rahul Jaiswal & Mr. Ranjan Sehgal. All the participants of this workshop were students of campus school, studying in 8th to 11th standard. Students were taught to do the activities together & also individually, which helped them building their confidence & teamwork. They were asked to improvise & enact a few concepts such as illiteracy, women empowerment etc., by heart the script & perform it over the stage. They were given many icebreaker activities & games , where the pronunciation & emotion control skills were addressed. They were taught about the different characters, Characterizations, styles of presentation, voice modulations, exercises, Pranayamas & the theoretical perspectives of theatre given by stanislovski. Some movies & short-films were also screened for them namely- “Stanley Ka Dubba” & “I am Kalam”..Students displayed good teamwork & acceptance towards each other during the workshop.
The ad-Hoc staff of the school along with the non teaching members extended a lot of efforts & helped the institution to conduct these activities well. They include Ms. Lata Popale [PRT], Mrs. Archana Lahane [TGT Marathi], Ms. Manasi Amdekar [Counselor], Mr. Shikherdeep Arora [PGT Hindi], Mrs. Madhavi Kulkarni [PGT Music] and Mrs. Alpana Bhagwat [Principal]. Parents of the participants were called for the concluding session. They were given an opportunity to present the learnt content over the stage and children were rewarded with course completion certificates.
Riwaayat, a classical music jugalbandi festival of young artists is an unique concept introduced for the very first time! It saw an amazing response and the artists left the crowd completely mesmerized.
In House Symposium of the Chemistry Department, held on April 7th 2018. A whole day program with mainly student oral talks from each group. We had two poster sessions to discuss science that was being presented. At last, students who had Posters, also gave flash presentation of 2 min to showcase their poster and attract visitors to their posters.
Dr Subramanian, a noted economist, statistician, and hon’ble Member of Parliament graced the stage as a part of the Distinguished Leadership Lecture Series of SJMSOM, Alankar, on the 25th of October. The topic of the lecture was “Will India’s economic growth (2019-2029) be resilient, robust, and sustainable?”.
Dr Swamy talked about the inherent strength and capacity for dynamic innovation in the Indian economy. He covered myriad topics in Indian economics and stressed upon the strength of Indian diversity and the essential oneness of all Indians as a hard-working, aspirational population.
Mr Bhatkal, CEO of Paani Foundation and director of the acclaimed television series, Satyamev Jayate, was a part of the DistinguishedLeadership Lecture series of SJMSOM, Alankar, on the 26th of October. He stressed on the capacity of the Indian people to solve all the problems that plague our nation. Mr Bhatkal elaborated on his mission as part of the Paani Foundation to address the water scarcity problem in India in general and Maharashtra in particular. He talked about the innovative measures that were undertaken in Maharashtra’a villages with guidance from Paani Foundation and help from the government that resulted in generation of water storage capacity of 1368 crore litres of water within a year.
Mr Sudhir Mungantiwar, the hon’ble Minister for Finance, Planning & Forests, Government of Maharashtra graced the stage as a part of the Distinguished Leadership Lecture series of SJMSOM, Alankar, on the 26th of October. He talked about the potential of India to emerge as the next global economic powerhouse. He also talked about the existing economic inequality in our society and the ways to reduce it. He also talked about other myriad aspects of economics of a state and the need to adopt an evidence-based project management style.
Mr Anurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, BW Business World, was a part of the Distinguished Leadership Lecture series of SJMSOM, Alankar, on the 27th of October. He urged students to always seek to learn from failures and be bold in their efforts and proactive when it comes to capitalising on opportunities. He recounted his struggles on his journey to helming one of the most respected business magazines of the country and lessons he learnt on the way.
Ms Debarati Sen, the Managing Director of 3M India, graced the stage as a part of the Distinguished Leadership Lecture series of SJMSOM, Alankar, on the 27th of October. In an inspiring talk, Ms Sen talked about her perspective on “Purpose led leadership”. She talked about the importance of persistence as a facilitator of success and the need to have an indomitable spirit. She urged students to always derive lessons from the experiences they have and strive to be ethical and inspirational leaders.
Mr Ashwin Sanghi, noted author and entrepreneur, graced the stage as a part of theDistinguished Leadership Lecture series of SJMSOM, Alankar, on the 28th of October. The topic of the lecture was, “The Power of Failure”. By elaborating on his personal failures and the lessons he learned from each of them, Mr Sanghi delivered an inspiring lecture where he urged students to embrace failure as a necessary stepping stone to success. The central learning he imparted to the students was that the ability to cope with failure is one of the necessary determinants of lasting success
CRA-W, an international computing body, has been organising the Grad Cohort workshop since 2004 in the US for women graduate students in computing. Over the last 15 years, the workshop has helped many women students through their graduate years and beyond. Starting this year, ACM-W India decided to adapt the model of this workshop to the Indian setting. ACM India Grad Cohort 2018, the first pan-India workshop for women graduate students in computing was organised this year. The event took place on July 6, 2018 and July 7, 2018 in CSE department at IIT Bombay campus. This workshop was also made a part of the Diamond Jubilee Celebration of IIT Bombay.
As part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of IIT Bombay, the Department of Earth Sciences, IIT Bombay has organized the 40th Annual Convention of Association of Exploration Geophysicists and seminar with a special theme “Exploration of Marine Geo-resources” during 1-3rd November 2018. The seminar has attracted the participation of a large number of renowned geoscientists and young researchers from various research organizations, industries, and universities in India to present their research during the technical sessions. As the Department has the state-of-art facilities for teaching and research and enjoys close links with the industry and various research organizations within as well as outside India, we were successful in bringing together many researchers from ONGC, GSI, NIO, OIL, NGRI, IIG, NCAOR and other private companies involved in geoscintific instrumentation.
The seminar was inaugurated by the Chief Guest Shri Dr. P. Chandrasekaran, Director (Exploration and Development) Oil India Limited. The exhibition of stalls was inaugurated by the guest of honour Dr. Dinesh Gupta, Director General, Geological Survey of India. The inaugural function was presided by Dr. V. M. Tiwari, President, AEG and Director, CSIR-NGRI. Prof. A. K. Suresh, Deputy Director (AIA) gave the welcome address on behalf of IIT Bombay Diamond Jubilee event. Prof. M. Radhakrishna, Department of Earth Sciences, IIT Bombay was one of the convenors of this seminar along with Dr. A. K. Chaturvedi, secretary, AEG.
International Seminar on Converters was organized as part of the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay 6-7th Dec. 2018. The seminar is organized by the Centre of Excellence in Steel Technology (CoEST), Department of Metallurgical Engineering & Materials Science and was sponsored by Tata Steel, JSW & Electrotherm (India) Ltd.
The objective of the seminar was to provide a holistic view of design, process dynamics and modelling aspects of converters and the states of art in industrial practice. All presentations for the seminar were by invitation and were delivered by international experts from China, Finland, South Africa, Japan, Austria, Chile and India . There were 80 delegates for the seminar.
India has emerged as the second largest steel producer in the world. In this context the seminar created so much interest among international and national experts that China and Japan have come forward with a proposal to have formalized exclusive interactions in iron and steel through annual conferences organized by these countries.
The idea of the seminar was mooted by Prof. S. Seetharaman, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Department of Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science. Prof. N. N. Viswanathan and Prof. M. Manish Pande were the convener and the co-convener for the seminar respectively. The post graduate students, especially from the steel technology stream, worked tirelessly to make this event a grand success.
The 4th World Congress on Disaster Management (WCDM-2019) was organised at IIT Bombay during 29th January - 1st February 2019 to deliberate on some of the most critical issues and challenges of implementation of the global frameworks on building resilience to disasters. Organised jointly by the Government of Maharashtra, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) Mumbai and Disaster Management Initiatives and Convergence Society (DMICS) Hyderabad, WCDM-2019 was designed to be the largest assembly on disaster management outside the UN system.
WCDM 2019 revolved around the overarching theme of The Future We Want: Bridging Gaps between Promises and Action. WCDM-2019 involved participation from national, state and local governments, multilateral agencies, scientific and technical organisations, academia, professional bodies, industry, civil society, practitioners and media from around the world, besides the UN bodies and multi-lateral and regional organisations. More than 1,000 national and international participants attended the conference, including 450 authors who made presented in plenary and thematic sessions.
The symposium was organized into the four sessions based on broad four themes, namely (i)Frontiers in Biosciences and Bioengineering, (ii) Language of Infection, (iii) Understanding biosystems: the interplay of structure and information and (iv) Translating our research: from lab to user. The symposium started with Prof. Rinti Banerjee giving opening remarks. Prof. N S Punekar chaired the first session which was about the frontiers in biosciences and bioengineering. Prof. V Nagaraja (President JNCASR, Professor IISc, Bangalore) spoke as a distinguished guest speaker. After this enlightening talk, Prof. Rohit Srivastava from IIT Bombay talked about the research in affordable healthcare technologies which followed a talk by Prof. Shantanu Ghosh, Professor IIT Bombay, on the role of yeast plasmid in the chromosome segregation. Prof. Shamik Sen concluded the session by presenting his research on 'MMP-cytoskeletal crosstalk in cancer invasion.'
The first session was followed by a lunch break along with a poster session, where 40 participants (mainly Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows) selected from BSBE department presented the ongoing research in various fields. The visitors and participants enthusiastically took part in viewing posters and had interesting discussions.
Prof. Swati Patankar chaired the second session titled 'The language of infection.' Prof. Joyoti Basu, Bose Institute, started the session by presenting her research on the role of microRNAs in tuberculosis. In the next talk, Prof. Samir Maji, IIT Bombay, discussed the possibility of cancer being a class of prion-like infectious disease, after which Prof. Anirban Banerjee, IIT Bombay, talked about ongoing research in his lab. A short tea break followed the lecture by Prof. Dipshikha Chakravortty, Indian Institute of Science, on ways pathogens escape defense system of hosts. The first day of the symposium was concluded with a student talk by Shuvolina Mukherjee.
The second day of DJ symposium started with a session on 'Understanding Biosystems: Interplay of Structure and Information' chaired by Prof. Dulal Panda. Dr. Zarir Udwadia, P. D. Hinduja Hospital, gave a very enlightening talk on 'Totally Drug-Resistant TB in India: challenges and opportunities.' Prof. Madan Rao, National Centre for Biological Sciences, gave a talk titled 'How to sculpt an organelle?' This was followed by a student talk by Kiran Kumari. After a tea break Prof. Saraswathi Vishveshwara, Indian Institute of Science, gave insights on the graph spectral method for protein structure network analysis and its applications. Prof. R. Sankaranarayanan, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, gave a talk titled 'DTD and the discriminator code.' The session ended with a talk by Prof. Prasenjit Bhaumik, IIT Bombay, discussed about activation mechanism of P. falciparum plasmepsins and development of anti-malarial drugs.
Key note Speaker: Dr. Apoorva Patel
Institute Functionaries: Prof.A.K.Suresh, Prof. Kaliappan, Prof.Suhas Joshi, Prof. Amit Agarwal
Performance by: Geek Freak(Alumni Group)
Key Note Speaker: Dr. Ajit Rangnekar
Institute Functionaries: Prf. A.K.Suresh, Prof.Mujumdar, Prof. Suhas Joshi, Prof. Balaji
Performance by L Saxophone Player Anil Karmarkar(Alumni of IITB
Key Note Speaker: Dr.Ganesh Natarajan, Mr.Arun Firodia
Institute Functionaries: Prof. Devang Khakhar, Prof. Mujumdar, Prof.Suhas Joshi, Prof. Balaji
Performance by: YPO group(Alumni of IITB)
Key Note Speaker: Dr. R.K.Shevgaonkar
Institute Functionaries: Prof.Devang Khakhar, Prof.Balaji, Prof.Joshi
Performance: Nitin Zamre(Flute player)
During the Diamond Jubilee celebration year, IIT Bombay witnessed setting up of a innovation center for water related research "Water Innovation Center: Technology, Research and Education (WICTRE)" with support from the Department of Science and Technology (DST).
India accounts for approx. 100 million people lacking access to safe consumable water. The setting of such a center has come up in time when the country is in as state of water stress phase. WICTRE is a collective initiative of the faculty members from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) Pune and Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University (PDPU) Gandhinagar. The aim of the center is to innovate novel technologies for sustainable water purification via Industry - academia partnership for industrial and societal benefit specifically aiming towards Indian scenario. Under the aegis of the water center a symposium "Water Symposium 2019" was organised as its first outreach activity. It is also a part of the diamond jubilee celebrations of IIT Bombay. The first in the series of the symposium was organised at the VM Convention Center at IIT Bombay. The scope of the symposium encompassed all aspects of water purification. The symposium witnessed large number of participants from various leading industries in the country. The proceeding of the symposium were marked by four panel discussions with panellists from funding agencies, academia and senior representatives of leading industries. The panels discussed all aspects of this grand challenge right from policy formulation and implementation to current challenges in water treatment. A panel discussion was also dedicated on finding a way out to graduating technology from laboratories to actual implementation in form of pilot plants.
Prof. Joseph John and his team has conducted a hands-on workshop for campus school and junior college students on Saturday August 25th, 2018.
Prof. Abhijit Majumdar from Chemical Department conducted a workshop on Research Methodology for campus school students.
The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay(IIT Bombay) today held its 56th Convocation, at the Convocation Hall of IIT Bombay. Shri Narendra Modi, Hon'ble Prime Minister of India, was the Chief Guest and delivered the Convocation Address. Shri Prakash Javadekar, Hon'ble Minister of Human Resource Development, Shri CH. Vidyasagar Rao, Governor of Maharashtra, and Shri Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, were Guest of Honours and graced the occasion.
The IEOR day 2019 was conducted at Victor Menezes Convection centre (VMCC), at IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India from 30th - 31st March 2019. IEOR Day 2019 was powered by McKinsey Knowledge Centre and IIT Bombay Diamond Jubilee office, The theme of IEOR Day 2019 was “Recent Trends in Operations Research and Management”. In this event, a total of about 160+ registrations were made which includes students, faculty members, and industry professionals. A total of 15 invited talks, 2-panel discussions, poster presentations, and student presentation were held on two days.
The IEOR Day 2019, was inaugurated by Prof. N. Hemachandra, Prof. Narayan Rangaraj, and Dr. K. Ganesh (Senior Knowledge Expert at McKinsey Knowledge Centre) by releasing the Annual Department Magazine “OPTIMYSTIC”, followed by a welcome address from Prof. Narayan Rangaraj. Dr. K. Ganesh then delivered the first keynote talk of the day on “Solving MEIO As Spanning Tree Problem Using DP”. On both the day of the event there were the various talk and panel discussions from academic as well as from industrialist speakers, which bring more insight for the recent trend in Operations Research and Management.