The Centenary Celebrations
“It took me 17 years and 114 days to become an overnight success.” -Lionel Messi
Likewise to be dignified as one of the top educational institutions of India, IIT (BHU) Varanasi had to pave a long way towards glory.
IIT (BHU) Varanasi has formerly been known as the Banaras Engineering College (BENCO), the College of Mining and Metallurgy (MINMET), the College of Technology (TECHNO) and the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (IT-BHU). Its establishment is intimately linked with that of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU). Founded in 1919 as the Banaras Engineering College, IIT(BHU) Varanasi is now about to complete 100 years of providing guidance to the students of this nation and seeding the expansion of academic system after independence. Thus, to remark this beautiful journey so far, the Centenary Celebrations will be held from Feb 2018 to Feb 2020.
The institute also feels that this is the right time to churn new centres for research, transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary education programmes. Looking forward to collaborating with industries and R&D participation, a brainstorming workshop was held on 10th and 11th February 2018 on the challenges and the way ahead to establish a centre for Dependability Engineering in the institute which is being contemplated as a part of the centenary initiatives.
The centre, so proposed, may be supported by various government departments/ministries including those of Mines, Railways, Aviation, Atomic Energy, Heavy Industry and other organizations like BARC, ISRO, DRDO, STQC under Meity(Ministry of Electronics and IT), IDRBT/RBI, DST, DBT, NTRO, WESSE(Navy), IRISET, RDSO etcetera.
Programme Recommendations involved an add-on masters level program to equip students with thorough knowledge of the domain in the form of IDD Programs and training and certificate programs for B.Tech/M.Tech students providing them industrial exposure. Also, National/ International collaboration programs could be held where academic institutions and industries can share their knowledge and the possibility of adding Micro-specialization courses on Reliability Analysis, Probabilistic Risk Assessment, Design for dependability were discussed in this workshop.
Research Recommendations involved research collaboration on safety, usability, fault tolerance, reliability and availability, which are important and necessary requirements of the industry today. The real need of the present time is providing solutions to industry identified problems through joint PhD programs and collaborative R&D projects.
Infrastructure and Support Recommendations were about establishing laboratories in concurrence with the industry and virtual classrooms with guest speakers from the industry.
LDRA offered support to this by giving 90% discount on commercial prices to IIT(BHU) Varanasi for software licenses for academic purposes and was willing to work with the institute in running a short-term course on Secure Coding Standards for Safety-Critical Embedded Systems and asked the institute to provide certification for the same.
As they say, “The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your arm.”
In an interview with Prof. AK Tripathi (Dean Resource and Alumni), he explained how every department was asked to give their respective centenary initiatives for the coming century by identifying their best projects and keeping in mind the national needs. He also said that these initiatives need to be aligned with and supported by corporate social responsibility programs of various organizations. He also mentioned about launching various programs for the betterment of student fraternity like SIR- Student Innovation and Research which attempts to cultivate an innovative mindset, financial and technical support for student-defined projects and research activities, etc. Another centre known as the Centre for Planning, Architecture and Disaster Management is also being proposed which aims to solve the real problems of smart cities and also re-engineering older cities into smart cities.
As a part of the Centenary Celebrations, IIT(BHU) Varanasi launched its Centenary Initiatives on 22nd February 2018 in Swatantrata Bhawan. The launch event was graced by the presence of Alumni of 1968 batch on account of the Golden Jubilee Alumni Meet organised by Student Alumni Interaction Cell (SAIC) of our institute. Prof RK Mishra, Chairman Organising Committee Centenary Celebrations welcomed honourable Director IIT (BHU) Varanasi, Prof.Rajiv Sanghal; Dean Resource and Alumni, Prof.A.K. Tripathi; Alumni of 68’ batch; faculty members and students present in Swatantrata Bhawan with a short speech in which he briefly elucidated how our Institute took birth in hostile social and political situations.
Mr. Arvind Gupta, CEO, MyGov (alumnus of 1992 batch, Electronics Engineering) and Mr. Rahul Sharma, MD, Amazon Web Services (an alumnus of 1992 CSE batch) made an announcement regarding NASSCOM meeting held in Hyderabad about signing an MoU between the Institute and Amazon for India’s first Amazon enabled AI lab which will work for development of India.
He apprised us about the three major objectives of this collaboration with the first one being the need for learning AI(Artificial Intelligence) to solve problems of India. This would also build capacity amongst the faculty of interdisciplinary departments to use AI and machine learning to solve problems related to agriculture and medicine by collaborating with various departments and schools of BHU which is the second objective.
The third, which forced the audience to raise their hands was giving a 100 Dollar credit on the Amazon Web Services to all of the 5,600 students of IIT(BHU) Varanasi every year in the spirit of giving back to the institute by Alumni Association of the institute.
The centenary initiatives were launched and unveiled on the same day in an exhibition outside the main hall of Swatantrata Bhawan where everyone could witness them and the Alumni of 1968 batch blessed the students and teaching fraternity of various departments and schools to realise these initiatives during the timeframe of the centenary celebrations adding further glory to the institution, alumni and all the stakeholders of the institute.
Centenary Initiatives for the following have been proposed
1) Faculty Housing
2) State of the Art Library
3) Shatabdi Granthalay- Housing Information and Communication Resources
4) Shatabdi Guesthouse
5) Shatabdi Kosh- Centenary Corpus Fund
The Hon’ble Director unveiled the Centenary Celebrations logo (designed by the students), depicting the vision of the institute “Excellence in education with character building.” This logo will be used as a backdrop for any academic meet, event or celebration held during this time. The Director emphasized the importance of inter-disciplinary projects and also the need for funding by the Alumni from personal money.
Plans are being with made with BHU for a mega alumnus meet and the site for alumni registration is alumninet.in.
Thus to wrap it up, through this celebration we are looking forward to newer dimensions of development.
