e-Yantra Symposium at IIT- Bombay
5th - 6th April 2024
Dr. R. Dheivanai (EEE Dept.), and Mrs. Monika Thakur (ECE Dept.) from Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurugram participated in the e-Yantra symposium held at IIT-Bombay on 5th and 6th April, 2024. The symposium included, keynote speech, panel discussion, exhibitions of cutting-edge technologies and demonstrations of projects developed by e-Yantra Innovation Challenge finalist teams from different colleges and eLSI Hackathon competition’s appreciation and award ceremony for top 5 Colleges.
Day 1: 05-04-2024
The symposium started with registration process followed with inauguration ceremony and lighting of Lamp at the auditorium. Prof. Kavi Arya gave the overview & progress of e-Yantra. e-Yantra is a robotics outreach program funded by the Ministry of Education and hosted at IIT Bombay. The goal is to harness the talent of young engineers to solve problems using technology across a variety of domains such as: agriculture, manufacturing, defence, home, and smart-city maintenance and service industries.
The next session was panel discussion where “Building a Defence Start-up Ecosystem” topic was discussed by panellists- Moderator – Prof. Kavi Arya, Commodore, Ajay Sharma (Retd.) – Vice President, Head Marine Systems/Defence Electronics, R&D Defence Business Development, Bharat Forge Ltd, R Admiral, Amulpreet Singh Sethi (Retd.), Ex-DG, WESEE, R Admiral Deepak Kumar Goswami, ASD, ND (Mumbai), Mr. Kiran Deshpande, Co-founder- Mojo Networks, Past- President TIE Pune, TIE Global Board Member. During the session everyone shared their experiences and challenges in their services followed by a session on business pitch evaluation by the same panel members. Then Ms. Ruchi, e-yantra team member briefed about e- yantra New college engagement Proposal in all over the states of India.
Afterwards, there was a Group discussion on ‘Transforming Defence Requirements into startup ventures with academic collaborations with the Panelists, Commodore Sandeep Wadhwa, Indian Navy, Captain Victor Pratap Singh, Indian Navy and Dr. VK Rai, Retd, Naval Officer, Colonel Prasad Bansod, Indian Army DRDO. They discussed about how to initiate start-up ventures among the colleges. Then Ms. Deepa, e-yantra team member presented details about school students’ involvement in e-yantra concept learning.
At the end of first day program there was a drone show by e-yantra team member Mr. Arjun who showed different types and capacity of drones at the open dining hall.
Day 2: 06-04-2024
The session for day 2 started with welcome speech by Prof. Kavi Arya. Then keynote address was delivered by Prof. Dinesh Singh on the topic “Building a Knowledge Economy” followed by another panel discussion on “Implementing NEP 2020- Design Your Degree”. The session was quite interesting. With the panelists Prof. Dinesh Singh – Vice Chairman, Jammu & Kashmir, Higher Education council, Prof. Umesh Rai, Vice chancellor, University of Jammu, and Prof. Shakil Ahmad Romshoo, Vice chancellor, Islamic University of Science & Technology, Kashmir. All discussed about National Education Policy and its importance.
Also there was another group discussion on “NEP 2020 at Colleges Vs Schools” with the panelists; Prof. Paritosh Pandya, Adjunct Professor, IIT Bombay, Prof. Shobha Bagai, Director, Cluster Innovation Centre, New Delhi, Prof. Shubha Pandit, Ex-Principal, KJ Somaiya College of Engineering, Mumbai, Mrs. RichaVerma, Principal, 7iWorld, Gwalior and Mr. Kiran Deshpande, co-founder- Mojo Networks, Past- President TIE Pune, TIE Global Board member.
Then lightning talks were given by IIT B faculties Prof. Varsha Apte, Professor & Head CSE, Prof. Ganesh Ramakrishnan, Professor, CSE, Prof. Milind Rane, Professor, Heat Pump laboratory, Prof. Surya S. Durbha, professor & Head, CSRE, Mr. Kiran Shesh, CEO, TiH Foundation IIT, Bombay. Everyone shared their department progress and achievement in a lightning manner as per the allocated time.
Then the award ceremony and valedictory function started. Prof. Kavi Arya distributed the certificates and memento to top 5 eLSI Hackathon team winners and to the winners of eYRC and eYIC competitions. Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurugram holds top 4th position in eLSI hackathon. e-Yantra team was highly appreciated by all participants for their co-ordination and support.
The concluding session started with vote of thanks speech by Prof. Kavi Arya. He greeted everyone presented in the event, followed by expressing gratitude to the guests. He presented a report on the entire happenings of two days. He shared wonderful words of encouragement with the students quoting the need to invest in improving the practical know-how of every engineering student apart from the theoretical knowledge they gain in the course of their study. This year e-yantra is going to introduce 4 year degree program on e-Yantra through on-line.
The symposium witnessed the enthusiastic participation of faculty members and students of various colleges. The e-Yantra Symposium provided an excellent platform for networking and exchanging ideas with peers and experts from various fields. Every aspect of the event, from its inception to the execution had been the outcome of the culminated efforts of Prof. Kavi Arya and his team.
The takeaway from the Symposium is ‘Encourage the students towards initialise start-ups in every field to promote the nation in better way’