Events

• End-Term exams for all the batches were held during May 2-5.
  
• Faculty Retreat for strategizing the roadmap for IIITB for 2020 was held at an offcampus site on May 11. In the leadership of Profs. V. Sridhar, Chetan Parikh and Madhav Rao, several faculty members presented their findings on the various dimensions of improvement and innovation that the Institute can undertake at this juncture of its growth, and discussed strategies for the same. This was followed up by an oncampus faculty meeting on June 17 to etch out short-term and long-term action plans. Watch out for more news in this front in the coming months. 


• UpGrad Data Analytics Programme was started on May 31.

• Farewell to MIIT Faculty members was held on June 8.
• IIITB and the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) entered into a MoU on June 9 at the IIMB campus with the aim to share their expertise in the areas of technology and management, respectively, with the start-ups being incubated in the innovation centres of both the institutes. Prof. R. Srinivasan (Director Incharge, IIM Bangalore), D. V. Jagadish (CEO, Outreach & Innovation Centre, IIITB), Prof. S. Sadagopan (Director, IIITB), Rajiv Sawhney (COO, NSRCEL), Prof. K. Kumar (Chairperson, Academic Programmes, NSRCEL) and Prof. Ramesh Sundararaman (COO, Innovation Centre, IIITB and founder of I-MACX) were present on the occasion.  
  
• The second International Yoga Day was celebrated on June 21. The celebration started with lighting of the lamp and Invocation. Dean (Academics and R & D) Prof. Debabrata Das formally welcomed the guest of the day, Ms. Divya Singh, who is a Yoga expert. She explained the importance of yoga in daily life. This was followed by a demonstration of Yoga Asanas by Ms. Divya Singh. She also she explained the benefits of the various Asanas. The programme was concluded with a formal vote of thanks by Associate Dean (Academics) Prof. Chandrashekar Ramanathan.
  For photos: https://goo.gl/photos/ZzcgRAyi3K8qiLde6


• 51st Senate meeting was held on June 22.



• The 19th Faculty Selection and Promotion Committee met on June 28 at the Institute. Of the 62 applications received in response to the rolling advertisement on the website of the Institute, four were shortlisted to meet the Committee. After interviewing the candidates, the Committee recommended two for appointment as Assistant Professors.

Publication including Presentations

• Prof. G. N. Srinivasa Prasanna presented his work with Sunil Vuppula (PH2009902) and Abhilasha (PH2009901), on "Optimization Under Uncertainty For Demand Response In Smart Grid", at the Informs conference on Business Analytics (BA) and Operations Research (OR), in Orlando, USA, during April 10-12, 2016. This presentation was a selected talk in the "Optimization" track. Prof. Prasanna discussed an application of OR techniques in smart grid, with a focus on Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model with multiple constraints. Significant takeaways from the presentation are the ways to model demand response programs in smart grid, solution methods for such models, and results and interpretation of these solutions. The methods can be applied in other domains like Indian Railways, KSRTC, etc. For details: http://meetings2.informs.org/wordpress/analytics2016/optimization/  For information on slides, contact Prof. Prasanna or watch out for its publication on the INFORMS website.
  
• Anshu Bhardwaj (MS2013005) presented her paper on "Design Appraoch Towards an Efficient Secure Reconfigurable System" co-authored by Prof. Subir K. Roy, at the IEEE International Conference on Recent Trends in Electronics Information and Communication Technology, on May 20 at the Sri Venkateshwara College of Engineering, Bengaluru.
  

• Nadimpalli Pavan Kumar (MS2013013) presented his paper titled "An Efficient FPGA-Based Function Profiler for Embedded System Applications" co-authored by Prof. Subir K. Roy at the 20th International Symposium on VLSI Design and Test, (VDAT-2016) (http://www.iitg.ernet.in/vdat2016/index.php) which was held at IIT Guwahati during May 24-27


• The poster paper titled "Formal Verification of Switched Capacitor DC to DC Power Converter" by Ambuj Mishra (MS2013002), co-authored with Prof. Subir Roy, was presented at 20th International Symposium on VLSI Design and Test (VDAT-2016), which was held during May 24-27. The proceedings of the conference will be published in IEEExplore. For more details: http://www.iitg.ernet.in/vdat2016
  .


• Prof. Chetan D. Parikh and Gopal Agarwal, Lecturer at Sarvajanik College of Engineering & Technology, Surat. “New technique to improve transient response of LDO’s without an off-chip capacitor” 20th International Symposium on VLSI Design and Test, Guwahati, May 24-27.


• The article titled “Business value of Wi-Fi” authored by Rahul Mishra, Founder of Rytangle.com – one of the start-ups being incubated at IIITB and Prof. V. Sridhar has appeared in Financial Express on May 26. Same can be accessed at:
  http://www.financialexpress.com/article/industry/tech/business-value-of-wi-fi/266001/  



• The article titled “Make IT for India” authored by Prof. V. Sridhar has appeared in live Mint on May 26.
  http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/tCuN7IMuTUAwEXICAqENMO/Make-IT-for-India.html

• Balaji Parthasarathy presented a paper titled "Beyond ICTs and developmental domains: The historical specificity of ICTD" at the 8th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, during June 3-6. The paper was co-authored with Yuko Aoyama of Clark University, USA.


• The article titled “When competition marries cooperation” authored by Prof. V. Sridhar and Prof. Rohit Prasad,  MDI, Gurugram has appeared in The Hindu Business Line on June 8.
  The same can be accessed at:
  http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/when-competition-marries-cooperation/article8706079.ece


• Sunil Kumar Vengalil (PH2014010) presented his paper titled ‘Customizing CNNs for Blood Vessel Segmentation From Fundus Images’ coauthored by Prof. Neelam Sinha, Srinivas Kruthiventi and R. Venkatesh Babu at International Conference on Signal Processing & Communications, (SPCOM) held at IISc, India, during June 12-15.


• The paper titled “Ola! Moral Economies of the Digital” by Kavitha Narayanan, Onkar Hoysala and Prof. Janaki Srinivasan was presented at 28th Annual Conference of the Society for Advancement of Socioeconomics (SASE) held at University of California-Berkeley, during June 24-26 (Presenting author: Onkar Hoysala).


• The paper titled “The Digital Transformation? A Study of Ola Auto” by Kavitha Narayanan, Onkar Hoysala and Prof. Janaki Srinivasvan was presented at the Workshop on Bangalore’s  ‘Great Transformation’: Land, Ecologies, Economies , Communities organized by National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore during June 24-25 (Presenting author: Kavitha Narayanan).


• The article titled “Time for Netizens to say Yes, ICANN” authored by Prof. V. Sridhar has appeared in The Economic Times Bangalore edition on June 30. The same can be accessed at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/et-by-invite-time-for-netizens-to-say-yes-icann/articleshow/52983860.cms

IIITB in Media

• http://www.deccanherald.com/content/551517/iim-b-iiit-b-join.html
  

• http://skilloutlook.com/2016/06/09/iiit-b-iim-bangalore-will-jointly-mentor-startups-incubated-in-their-respective-innovation-centres/


• http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/iim-bangalore-iiit-b-sign-mou-to-provide-mentorship-to-startups-116060901000_1.html


• http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/when-technology-and-sales-muscles-meet/article8711828.ece


• http://www.indiapages.in/iim-bangalore-iiit-b-join-hands-share-expertise-4384.html


• http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/IIM-B-IIIT-B-join-hands-to-nurture-startups/articleshow/52681522.cms

Faculty & Staff

• Balaji Parthasarathy was invited to deliver the keynote address at the closing/awards ceremony of the 49th Annual Science Festival of the Bangalore Science Forum on May 8.

• Prof. Sujit Kumar Chakrabarti delivered full day session titled 'Formal Techniques in Software Testing' in SVNIT Surat as a part of the Requirement Specification and Verification workshop on May 13.

• Profs. Meenakshi D'Souza and Sujit Kumar Chakrabarti organized and attended the first workshop of the RAEngg sponsored project on Simulink refinement at Government Engineering College, Idukki (GECI), Kerala during May 19-21. The former is a PI on the project, and the latter a collaborator; and this workshop was hosted by the collaborator on the project at GECI.


• Prof. Meenakshi D'Souza delivered an invited lecture at the Application of Formal Methods for Safety and Security critical systems, held at CSIR-NAL, Bengaluru, on May 26 .
  
  
• Balaji Parthasarathy was invited to deliver a talk titled "Collaborative Governance for Social Innovation" on June 24 as part of the Research in Play lecture series organized by the Bangalore-based NGO Fields of View.

There are new faces and roles on campus. Details of their joining:

June 2: Commodore S. R. Sridhar (Retd) joined as Officer on Special Duty

June 22: Vighneshwar Hegde, Accounts Officer

Academic Milestones

• May 9: Gracy Joseph (PH2013002) - State of the Art seminar (Ph.D.)

• May 9: Sunil Kumar Vengalil (PH2014010) – State of the Art seminar (Ph.D.)

• May 23: Girish K. (MS2009502- Thesis oral examination (Master of Science by Research)
  
  
• May 31: Chaitali Diwan (MT2014024) - Thesis oral examination (M.Tech.)
  
  
  
• June 1: Beena Kumari (MS2013003) -Thesis oral examination (Master of Science by Research)
  
  
• June 3: Sowmya R. (PH2014008) - Comprehensive examination  ( Ph.D)


• June 7: Nirmal Kumar S. (MS2013010 - Thesis oral examination (Master of Science by Research) 


• June 13:  Pragati Agrawal (PH2011003) -Thesis oral examination (PhD)


• June 13: Nadimpalli Pavan Kumar (MS2013013) - Thesis oral examination (Master of Science by Research)


• June 14: Ambuj Mishra (MS2013002) - Thesis oral examination (Master of Science by Research)
  
  
• June 15: Prakruti Chandrashekar (MS2013011) - Thesis oral examination (Master of Science by Research)



• June 15: Anoop Kumar Pandey (MS2013008) - Thesis oral examination (Master of Science by Research)


• June 17: Shweta Mishra (MT2014116) - Thesis oral examination (M.Tech.)

Guest Talks

• May 10: “Explaining trust in e-voting: The case of Indian elections” by Prof. Chrisanthi Avgerou (Professor and Head of the Information Systems and Innovation Group) and Dr. Silvia Masiero of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
• June 27: "Parameterized Modeling and Model Order Reduction" by Dr. Elizabeth Rita Samuel (Ph.D. from Gent University, Belgium)
  
  
Campus Visitors

• May 6: Dr. Manish Gupta, VP and Director, Xerox Research Center India


• May 25: Dr. K. B. Chandrasekhar, Founder - JamCracker, Exodus, e4e; Advisor - IDG Ventures.


• June 16: Johnson&Johnson’s Senior Executives


• June 21: Mr. Koteeswaran, IoB MD


• June 24: Mr. Divyaratna Sharma, (Microsoft)

• July 3: 16th Convocation
  

• July 5: Talk by Prof. Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia University, recipient of Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) at IIIT-Bangalore


• July 8: New batch of students for M.Tech. arrives


• July 11: Preparatory term (2016-17) begins
  
  
• July 29: New batch of students for iM.Tech., Master of Science by Research, and Ph.D. arrives


• July 31: Preparatory term ends


• August 1: Term 1 (2016-17) begins