TechNext India 2018
10th - 11th February 2018
Computer Society of India (CSI) Mumbai Chapter in association with FOSSEE and Spoken Tutorial, IIT Bombay hosted a two-day annual academic conference and awards for academia 'TechNext India 2018' on 10th - 11th February 2018, at the Victor Menezes Convention Centre, IIT Bombay. TechNext India 2018 is the sixth edition of annual event of CSI Mumbai Chapter.
Dronacharya College of Engineering has been accredited as the "Best Institute of the Year" under the category "Innovative pedagogical approaches and tools" and being the Student Branch Counsellor of CSI Dronacharya Student Branch, Mrs. Poonam Yadav represented the college at the two day conference and received the award.
The event aims at bridging a gap between Industry and Academia. The key highlights of the events were awards to academia, workshops, seminar, technical session and student project showcase. The conference comprised of more than 45 speakers, 600 academicians and industrialists as well as industry professionals.
Day 1: 10th February, 2018
The day began with the welcome address by Mr. Abraham Koshy (Chairman, CSI Mumbai Chapter). He welcomed all the esteemed attendees from various fields and the participants for different events. The inaugural address was given by Dr. Pradeep Pandse (Event Chair, TechNext India 2018). The chief guest for the conference was Dr. Devang Khakhar (Director, IIT Bombay). He welcomed all the esteemed attendees from various fields and the participants for different sessions and the awardees for different categories. He also focused that there is a constant need for IT Professionals to update themselves and academia for smooth transformation of knowledge and skill.
Dr. Kannan Moudgalya (Professor, IIT Bombay & OC Chair, TechNext India 2018), Director - was the keynote speaker who addressed the participants giving the overview of CSI and the event along with the objective to organize the two day conference. Then followed by a Panel Discussion on 'Should eText-books replace Text Books'. The moderator for the panel discussion was Prof. Shweta Tripathy (Fr. Conceicao Rodrigues Institute of Technology) and the panel members were Prof. Sridhar Iyer (Professor and Head, Educational and technology, IIT Bombay), Ms. Nirali Bhatia (Cyber Psychologist), Dr. M. Sasikumar (Director, CDAC, Mumbai) and Dr. Mahendra Gupta (Founder, MEETCS). It was an informative discussion covering the main issues faced in today's world of technical education and to improve student's classroom engagements through technology. The panel discussion covered the main reasons that create the difference in the courses taught and the demands of the industry, also the solutions were discussed for bridging the gaps and meet the requirements. The discussion came to an end with an interactive question/ answer session.
There was also an "Industry Academia Meet", a breakout session between industry and academia to discuss challenges being faced in the industry and brainstorm common research topics of interest for research. The joint initiatives by the industry and academia will play an important part in plugging the talent gap in the years to come and to reboot the Indian education system and. Training individuals for the jobs of the future and allowing them to visualize what it possible today will not only make a difference in their lives but will enrich our communities now and for the future.
Other parallel workshops were being held included workshop on "Moodle" by Dr. Ela Goyal (Founder, MEETCS), workshop on "Teaching Deep Learning with MATLAB" by Dr. Viju Ravichandran (Technical Evangelist Education, Mathworks), workshop on "User generated contents using tools" by Mr. Dilip Tikle (Founder, Connect Dots) and workshop on "Scilab-Ardino" by Mr. Manas Ranjan Das (FOSSE, IIT Bombay).
Day 2: 11th February, 2018
On the second day, the keynote address was given by Dr. D. B. Pathak, IIT Bombay, who is also the recipient of Padma Shri Award and Fellow Computer Society of India, Professor, IIT Bombay. Dr. Pathak explained in his speech how online education plays an important role in providing relevant data and study material from the placement view. He also discussed the emerging technologies for science education and how to bridge the gap between academia and industry and what steps could be taken for the same.
Another panel discussion was organized on "Cyber Security Factors to be consider while using technology". The moderator for the session was Mr. Anil Ghodekar (VP Cyber Security, Motilal Oswal) and the esteemed panelists including Mr. Smith Gonsalves (Director, RedMigon Development), Mr. Akshay Rege (Director, Synclature) and L.S.Subramanian (Thought Leader, Trainer, Speaker, Blogger, Writer and academic). Several other technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, cloud, and mobility, security was discussed and the focus needs to shift from securing network perimeters to safeguarding data spread across systems, devices, and the cloud.
The TechNext India 2018-Distinguished Awards to Academia was also conducted by CSI- Mumbai Chapter. The awards recognized the very best in academics and rewarded the Distinguished College, Distinguished Principal, Professor and HOD for significant contribution in the Academics. The award ceremony took place at venue and Dronacharya College of Engineering was awarded as the "Best Institute of the year 2017" under the category Innovative pedagogical approaches and tools.
At the end of the conference, Dr. S. S. Mantha (Former Chairman of AICTE) gave the vote of thanks to all the participants and the venerated group of delegates from various fields and sectors. The conference proved to be very informative and knowledgeable for everyone present at the venue.