The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Slots for PanIIT 2008 filling up

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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Slots for PanIIT 2008 filling up

Shyam Ranganathan

CHENNAI: Institutions for research and innovation are now becoming passé, and the buzzword is now ‘ecosystems’ with ‘symbiotic relationships’ between institutions, industry and the outside world. No wonder that the ‘Innovation’ and the ‘Research’ tracks at PanIIT 2008 have their concluding sessions on innovation and research ecosystems respectively.

PanIIT 2008, the global meet of IIT alumni, is expected to draw some of the most noted leaders from around the world, including Nobel Laureates Amartya Sen and Muhammad Yunus, Orkut Büyükkökten, founder of social networking site orkut.com, L.N. Mittal, CEO, Arcelor Mittal, and Carlos Ghosn, CEO, Renault, and policymakers such as Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institute.

The event, to be held here between December 19 and 21, has been designed with six thematic tracks to allow the delegates to discuss deliverable objectives for India’s development, says B. Santhanam, chairman, PanIIT 2008 organising committee, and Managing Director, Saint-Gobain Glass India.

The event is restricted to IIT alumni, with nearly two-thirds of the 3,000 slots for delegates filled, says Chand Das, chairman, Marketing and PR committee, and CEO, ITC (Education and Stationery). And as the countdown goes on, the invitees and the organisers are busy getting ready for the panel discussions in each track.

A common denominator

Creativity is a common denominator for both the arts and technology worlds, and the ‘Innovation’ track balances both the worlds by having sessions on ‘Innovation and Entrepreneurship,’ and ‘Innovation in Media and Arts.’

Thus, Bombay Jayashri and T.M. Krishna, two of the panelists at the Innovation in Media and Arts session, will bring the ‘Experience Economy’ to the participants, a day after M.S. Krishnan, Professor, Business Information Technology, University of Michigan, and R. Subramanian, CEO, Subhiksha, explain the nuances of implementing innovative ideas in business and technology.

“To achieve all-round development, innovation is obviously essential, and this track will look at the means of understanding and applying innovation to the various problems facing us. In particular, I have always felt that music is one of the most powerful creative forces in humanity, and the media and the arts can teach technologists a lot about innovation,” says Vaidyanathan, session chair and assistant vice-president and head, Global Innovation Office, Cognizant Technologies.

A comprehensive plan will involve the creation of an ecosystem, in which the academia, industry and the larger world can interact positively to focus innovation on socially relevant projects, Mr. Vaidyanathan says.

Similarly, the ‘Research’ track will focus on the means of leveraging research in academia for society. The first session will look at research and its impact on rural development, while the second will discuss research at IITs from the perspective of students and faculty.

The final session will look at the creation of a ‘research ecosystem,’ involving faculty, students and industry to look at the means of tapping the research potential among the students of the institute.

“There are always questions whether IITs ought to be teaching or research institutions. But given that research is an important aspect in a world-class technical institution, we need to look at research ecosystems similar to the linkages in Silicon Valley with Stanford University,” says Gautam Shroff, session chair on IIT research and head, TCS Innovation Lab, Delhi.

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