MAY 2022
KNOWLEDGE TREE - IMPACTFUL STORIES FROM IIT BOMBAY
Dear Friend,
Greetings from IIT Bombay!
Warm greetings from IIT Bombay, reflecting the springing up of spring, simmering of the summer as a harbinger of the monsoon, and the heating up crescendo building up to end semesters and graduation. I am certain that our students would have spared no effort for the end semesters, and they will come out with flying colours.
Last month, we officially concluded our annual GO IIT Bombay Campaign. The fundraising under the GO IIT Bombay Campaign, along the four core causes, received an excellent response from the alumni. I would like to profusely thank all the donors who have contributed to the causes, which will go a long way in promoting these defined causes at the Institute. I would also like to sincerely thank the faculty members who came forward to appeal about the causes to alumni at large.
FACULTY INTERVIEW
IIT Bombay’s mission to create tangible academic and societal change in the world is made possible by its brilliant students, faculty members and researchers. One such outstanding faculty member is Prof. Milind Atrey, Dean (R&D), IIT Bombay, and Institute Chair Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, who has added many laurels to his name over the years. He continues to advocate for stronger academia-industry alliances so that products created in a laboratory make a seamless transition to the marketplace and are utilized to solve real-world societal issues.
Conversation with Alumni
IIT Bombay alumnus, Ms. Zenobia Driver (M.Sc., Chemistry, 1998) wears many hats – successful entrepreneur, committed and tireless cheerleader of the Institute, key member of IIT Bombay Alumni Association and more. We are delighted to speak to her and in this two-part conversation she takes us on a nostalgic journey back in time to when she was a student at IIT Bombay in the 1990s and the many lessons she learned, highlights the many hang-out spots of the Institute, gives us a firsthand insight into how the Institute and the campus made her feel safe, gives us a crash course on some of IIT Bombay’s slang, and elaborates on the difference between how the Institute was back in the 90s to how it is today.
In part one of the conversation, apart from taking us back in time to when she was a student at IIT Bombay, Ms. Driver reflects on her career trajectory and becoming an entrepreneur since she graduated from the Institute. In part two of the conversation (to be published in the Dean ACR June 2022 newsletter) she will take us through her journey as an alumni volunteer and her hopes and dreams for her very cherished alma mater.
News from IIT Bombay
ALUMNI Initiative
IIT Bombay alumnus, Mr. Rajendra Gandhi, endows scholarship for women students
IIT Bombay alumnus, Rajendra Gandhi (B.Tech., Metallurgical Engineering and Material Sciences, 1971) has graciously committed to a scholarship endowment for women students at IIT Bombay. The scholarship titled “Bhanu” in memory of Mr. Gandhi’s late mother will support women students who face financial constraints and are often discouraged to pursue their education in the STEM field.
Mr. Gandhi credited his personal and professional growth to the top-quality education he received at IIT Bombay. This motivated him to give back to his alma mater, and support deserving women students at the Institute.
Mr. Gandhi’s generous donation adds to the Institute’s overall mission of providing a world-class education to economically-challenged and meritorious students.
Upcoming Events
IIT Bombay Alumni Interactive Dinner in Boston
IIT Bombay Chapters are established across the world and have been instrumental in establishing local communities for the welfare of the IIT Bombay Alumni. In the month of May 2022, a team from IIT Bombay, led by Director, Prof. Subhasis Chaudhuri, is visiting Boston to meet with alumni in the region.
- Day & Date: Wednesday, May 19, 2022
- Time: 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm EDT
- Venue: Boston Marriott Burlington, Burlington, MA
Faculty Alumni Network (FAN) Meeting to be held at Ohio State University
The Institute’s FAN (Faculty Alumni Network) meeting is being revived after a two-year hiatus due to Covid. The 2022 edition of the FAN meeting will be held in collaboration with Ohio State University (OSU) at the latter’s campus in Columbus, Ohio, USA, on May 13 and 14, 2022.
This edition of the FAN meeting is aligned along the Institute’s core theme of “Institute of Eminence (IoE)” and will be graced by eminent academicians and industry practitioners who will come together to discuss emerging technologies and develop mutually beneficial and transformative initiatives and their applications in the real world.
- Day & Date: Friday & Saturday, May 13th & May 14th, 2022
- Time: 8:30 am - 9:00 pm (EST)
- Venue: Ohio State University (OSU), Columbus, Ohio, USA
Changing Role of Chemical Engineers: Medical Technologies: Online Panel discussion by IITB Chemical Engineering Alumni
IIT Bombay’s Chemical Engineering alumni, who have grown to become industry experts and leaders, will come together to explore the current trends and future directions of important science- and technology-driven industries and the role that IIT Bombay can play in shaping these trends.
The latest in a series of panel discussions will focus on medical technologies and examine the state of the industry at the national and global level, explore current trends and future directions, analyse the role played by chemical engineers in developing and deploying relevant technologies and more.
The panel discussion will feature eminent experts in medical technologies. They include:
1. Dr Kalyan Handique (ChE 95), VP, Adv Tech, BioRad Laboratories
2. Dr Nirupama Kenkare (ChE 92), Head of MS&T, Alcon
3. Joydeep Goswami (ChE 93), Chief Strategy & CDO, Illumina
4. Prof Santosh Noronha, IIT-Bombay
5. Moderator: Dr. Sanat Mohanty (ChE 95), VP, Operations, Senseonics
- Day & Date: Saturday, May 21, 2022
- Time: 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
- Venue: Virtual
Low-Cost Diagnostics for Affordable Healthcare
Wadhwani Research Centre for Bioengineering at IIT Bombay is organizing a one-day event on “Low-cost diagnostic for affordable healthcare.” The event seeks to brainstorm ideas with various stakeholders involved in the development of technology and develop low–cost diagnostic solutions. This program will include a few short talks, dedicated networking and brainstorming sessions and a panel discussion on ‘Bottlenecks and potential solutions to translational innovation in low-cost diagnostics’, which will be moderated by Dr Abdur.
Kindly note all participants are requested to present a poster of their projects to initiate the discussion.
- Day & Date: Friday, June 03, 2022
- Time: 9.00 am to 5.30 pm
- Venue: Victor Menezes Convention Centre, IIT Bombay
INNOVATIVE PRODUCT & TECHNOLOGY
SPECIAL FEATURE
The Technocraft Centre for Applied Artificial Intelligence (TCA2I) was inaugurated on April 8, 2022 at IIT Bombay. The Centre’s vision is to leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning techniques to solve society’s most pressing challenges. Watch this exciting video of the TC2AI website launch.
SUCCESS STORIES
IIT Bombay’s Aneesh Bapat (B.Tech, Engineering And Physics) recently discovered electrostatically tunable topological transitions in a new type of mixed state of light and matter called “biaxial hyperbolic polaritons” His discovery was published in the prestigious journal Nanophotonics (impact factor = 8.45).
We’d first like to congratulate Aneesh on his remarkable achievement. Despite his already hectic and challenging academic schedule at IIT Bombay, Aneesh was still able to pursue his research on the side and make a significant discovery in Physics and one that has the potential to impact the world. We’re sure that his dedication, work ethic and success will inspire and ignite the passions of his peers and fellow students on campus. We look forward to hearing more about his amazing discovery and his future plans.
Hello, Aneesh. Firstly, many congratulations on your astonishing achievement. You have made the Institute very proud. Can you explain more about your discovery for those of us who aren’t physicists?
Aneesh: The discovery deals with an interesting phenomenon that occurs in a nanoscale device that can be used for applications in infrared light technologies. It also involves two interesting materials – MoO3 and Graphene. Mo03 behaves like a one-directional insulator and metal when required, whereas, in the other direction, it will act as a conductor in the infrared regime. Although this behaviour provides fascinating directional properties to devices created with Mo03, they lack active tunability. Graphene does not show any directional behaviour, but the voltage can control its optical properties.
Student Research Article
COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a tough challenge to the global economy and to the world in general. Effective screening and testing people for the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, wearing masks when they’re in public and avoiding social gatherings in the presence of multitudes of people, are some of the ways that the world has been able to curtail and contain the rapid growth of the virus and save lives. Unfortunately, even these bare-minimum steps are extremely difficult to implement in a large country like India. Much of the country is dependent on small businesses for their survival and that requires being in public, socializing with vendors, wholesalers and customers on a day-to-day basis. Enforcing social distancing norms under such a scenario is extremely difficult. Also, despite undertaking large-scale vaccination programs, there is always the fear of the emergence of outbreaks driven by other variants, and the potential of future pandemics due to other pathogens.
