Conclave and Hackathon on Virtual And Augmented Reality Begins At IIT Bhubaneswar

10th Jan, 2020 Bhubaneswar: IIT Bhubaneswar in association with Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), and Govt. of Odisha is holding a Conclave on Hackathon on Virutal and Augmented Reality was inaugurated today 10th-12th Jan 2020 at its campus. The Inaugural ceremony of the three day Conclave and Hackathon is inaugurated today where Shri. Omkar Rai, DG, STPI graced as the Chief Guest, Shri Manoj Kumar Mishra, IRTS, Secretary, E & IT Department, Govt. of Odisha as Guest of Honour and Prof. R.V. Raja Kumar, Director, IIT Bhubaneswar presided over.

Prof. R.V. Raja Kumar, Director, IIT Bhubaneswar during his inaugural address emphasized the importance of new age technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of things (IOT) and 5G communication are the current trends in IT, where systems are being developed to incorporate these and are important in realizing the Digital India dream, today. He said that the Hackathon is conceptualized to encourage creativity and technology development amongst the engineering students across the country, in AR-VR. He also briefed about the research activity taking place in the Institute in these core areas. He credited Shri. Narendra Modi, the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India for popularizing and providing momentum to the concept of Digital India among the masses. He also acknowledged the philanthropic support from Smt. Susmita Bagchi, Shri. Subroto Bagchi, Odisha Skill Development Authority, MSME department of the Govt. of Odisha, STPI for joining hands together with IIT Bhubaneswar for creation of Center of Excellence in AR-VR (VARCoE) at the institute.

VARCoE focuses on creating an ecosystem for carrying out R&D in AR-VR, immersive visualization and applications, giving impetus to skill development, manpower creation through innovative education program and foster technology incubation and entrepreneurship.

Thus, the goal of the conclave and hackathon is to gather people with different backgrounds and experiences to work together in teams and create disruptive and inspiring products/solutions for use in every field of imagination in the AR/VR domain. Also present on the occassion were Prof. P.K Sahu, Professor-in-charge, VARCoE, Prof. M. Sabarimalai Manikandan Organizing Committee Member, VARCoE, IIT Bhubaneswar, Mr. Manas Panda, Director, STPI Bhubaneswar and Mr. Prasant Biswal, Evangelist, Startup Odisha Secretariat, IEDO, Bhubaneswar. The inaugural ceremony ended with vote of thanks.

The Conclave and Hackathon includes several guest talks, interactive sessions, workshops by student teams. Some of the esteemed speakers during the three day conclave include talks by Dr. Pradipta Biswas, IISc Bangalore, Dr. Kaushal Kumar Bhagat, CET, IIT Kharagpur, Prof. Rajesh M. Hedge, IIT Kanpur, Dr. Shiva Ji, IIT Hyderabad and Dr. Subroto Bagchi, Chairman Odisha Skill Development Authority. The talks and sessions will be followed by award ceremony.