Any research is useful only when applied in the real context to solve local, social problems, said P. Srinivasa Rao, Vice-President, Wipro Technologies, Bangalore.
Inaugurating the 3-day International Conference on Computing, Cybernetics and Intelligent Information System (CCIIS’ 2013) at the VIT University in Vellore on Thursday, Dr. Rao called for greater industry-institution collaboration to encourage meaningful research to meet challenges faced by the country.
The U.S. was witnessing a great amount of industry-academia collaboration, whereas the industry in India did not evince much interest in collaboration with educational institutions. In future, such collaboration will be necessary to solve social problems, he predicted.
Detailing the evolution of computers, he said the third generation devices have led to the digitalization of business.
The devices even revolutionized automobile technology, with 30 to 40 per cent of the auto components being electronic components.
Education and health sectors were also getting digitalized. The future held the possibility of the emergence of more embedded devices which could be embedded inside the human body to cure diseases, while the robots would become smarter, leading to the blurring of the dividing line between the human and the machine, he said.
Sumeet Verma, Head-Higher Education, Intel Asia Pacific, Bangalore, said that it was extremely important to innovate on embedded devices to meet local challenges.
“We have solved a lot of global problems. But the local problems that exist today also need to be addressed,” he said urging the students to come out with innovative and cost-effective solutions for most commonly used products.
G. Viswanathan, VIT Chancellor, inaugurated the Intel Embedded Systems Lab in the Silver Jubilee Tower in the VIT campus.
M. Narayanamoorthy, Assistant Professor, School of Computing Sciences and Engineering (SCSE) said the new lab would enable the students to learn the Intel microprocessor and embedded design system.
Project-based learning
The VIT offered project-based learning for the B.Tech. Computer Science and Engineering students to enable them solve social problems.
About 100 such projects would be offered to the students who would use the Intel atom-based processor to carry on their innovation.
S. Margret Anouncia, Dean, SCSE welcomed the gathering. C. Srimathi, co-convener explained the themes of the conference.
The conference is being organized in association with Deakin University, Australia, IEEE (Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), Madras Section and Computer Society of India (CSI), Vellore chapter.
More than 350 delegates and 500 students are participating. The keynote speakers include domain experts representing academia, research organizations and industry from India and abroad.
