The Dhirubhai Ambani-Institute of Information and Communication Technology, located in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, aims to serve as a catalyst and a change agent for the development of a culture for Information and Communication Technology. Synapse 2004, the Annual Technology Festival of DA-IICT, was another step forth in this pursuit, celebrating the spirit of Information and Communication in the Society.
The festival was a weekend of celebration, on 20 - 22 February 2004, to connect and bind aspects of Technology and Society through a series of panel discussions, lectures, workshops, exhibitions and exciting competitive events. The celebration reinforced not only the usefulness and usability but also emphasized on the delight and the overall experience of using technology.
Synapse envisages the idea of a multicultural information and communication community by the confluence of corporate, professionals, entrepreneurs, academicians and students, along with technical connoisseurs to accentuate the significance of knowledge sharing in connected communities.
Leading technology and other related institutes in the country participated to discuss and explore Information, Communication and Technology and their application towards technically feasible, culturally desirable and economically sustainable engineering solutions.
Delivering the inaugural lecture Mr. Kanwalinder Singh of CTO Lucent Technologies focused on the theme Future of Mobility: 3G Trends and Developments in CDMA Networks. He talked about the following points:
-
CDMA has already succeeded in markets like India.
-
Higher forward link and reverse link capacity in future (in CDMA).
-
High capacity of voice, almost 3 times that present in GSM.
-
Self-optimizing networks that work dynamically to cover maximum area possible.
Further he talked about the "Base Station Router"(Bell Labs' vision of future 4G concept using 3G technology) that combines compact chip design with Ethernet, i.e. true convergence of IT and CT.
Later, Prof. Kudchadker described Synapse 2004 as "unique technological event put together by the students of DA-IICT".
Conferences @ Synapse
During Synapse 2004 conferences were also organized on certain themes.
ICT for socio-economic development
The objective of this conference was to discuss the role of ICT in shaping the diversified world into a global village and indeed, it served the purpose. The idea was to expose the students to the changing global scenario and how this radical change is having an impact on the masses.
Mr. R. Rajasekarapandy, social scientist, MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), kicked off the conference. He spoke about the rural development-taking place in the southern part of the country mainly in Pondicherry. The idea behind his talk was to convey how MSSRF is establishing information kiosks and providing cheap wireless communication to the rural people especially farmers. Mr. Aditya Dev Sood, CEO, Centre for Knowledge Societies, Bangalore, an expert on anthropology, talked about the implications of design in mobile telephony and the effect it has had on the local being. Mr. Ravi Pradhan, Country Manager, Via Technologies laid stress on "Affordable Computing" i.e. producing cheap hardware in the country, bringing the hardware costs to minimal. Prof. BH Jajoo, Professor, IIM-Ahmedabad and Prof. Kudchadker, Director, DA-IICT summed it up by adding their last words towards the changing trends in technology.
Patent regime, IPR and cyber laws
Mr. Mohit Mahajan, Executive Consultant at FITT (IIT Delhi), discussed the impact of IPR on technological developments and the effect it has on the technological diffusion from both economic and ethical perspective. His multidisciplinary education and work experience made him the best person to address diverse questions in the minds of students. Mr. Rakesh Basant from IIM Ahmedabad talked about the implications of IPR regime in economic perspective. Mr. K.V. Ramesh, an advocate and legal consultant, talked abut the need of uniform code of law in cyberspace.
Chairing the conference, Dr. Ganesh N. Devy, Sahitya Academy Award winner of 1993 and presently teaching at DA-IICT, commenting on the need of uniform code of IPR regime, said that the rapid networking of the matrix of intellectual property rights has to take place not only internationally, but also co-nationally.
IT education and IT industry in Gujarat
Gujarat Informatics limited conducted a conference on "IT Education and IT opportunities in Gujarat". In the conference the IT students from around 20 colleges all over Gujarat along with eminent people from academia, goverment and industry participated. In the two hour conference, Anil Mukim, MD, Gujarat informatics limited spoke about the excellent infrastructure avaialble in the form of Infocity, STP Gandhinagar, Gujarat State wide area network etc.
Mrs. Neeta Shah, Director, e-Governance cell, GIL supplemented her talk by presenting diverse innovative projects in the field of e-Governance that GIL is supervising and developing effetively to improve the life of a common man.
Leading entrerpreuners in Gujarat like Mr.Chirag Mehta, MD and CEO, Icenet.net and Dr.Madhu Mehta, Chairman, IT Forum Vadodra instill the motivating force among the brilliant and talented minds to reach more heights in their careers.
Lectures @ Synapse
Besides, the above conference few lectures were also delivered
Mr. Sameer Gangan having over 16 years of broad experience in the different facets of the business - Manufacturing, New Product Introduction, Project Management of development projects and Partnership Management of 3rd party vendors represented QUALCOMM Incorporated conducted a lecture on the different elements of the BREW system.
BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) is a product of QUALCOMM Internet Services (QIS), a division of QUALCOMM Incorporated. It is a complete end-to-end solution that allows end-users to download applications to the handset over the air by using the hot combination of IT and CT.
As part of the lecture series at synapse, Mr. Amol Mahamoni and Mr. Mohan Jaykar represented IBM and discussed IBM's e-business on demand strategies
Lectures were delivered and workshops were conducted by Microsoft, Planet finance and Reliance Infocomm also..
Mr. Raj Singh from MKPA - Panasonic, discussed the role of the semiconductor diode laser in modern light wave communication systems. He also discussed the recent developments in the diode laser technology to meet the demands for the communication networks of the future
Events @ Synapse
Forage-"The Junkyard Wars"... This was really a war worth watching, with the only weapon allowed as junk! For some a long tattered rope was their sword and few considered the dirty rusted non-uniform iron piece as their Armour. It was a battle of the participant's sense of design, innovation and skill. It also required team effort as the whole team had to trust one team member's instincts to choose junk. It was an ingenious competition; one of it's kind which offered a lot of fun to the participants and the spectators alike. No wonder it was one of the most participated, well organized and nail biting events of Synapse-2004.
Budding Entrepreneurs of tomorrow pondered the ideas for an overall development of India Shinning, mainly aiming towards the rural sector growth trying to lend a hand through ICT Tools. Planet Finance an international non-profit institution, which aims at reducing poverty by using the Internet, sponsored the event and other IT related technologies to promote the development of microfinance. A workshop was also organized making the technologists of tomorrow aware about microfinance and ICT and the way the two can join together their hands for an unprecedented, unpredictable growth of our nation.
Synapse 2004 witnessed a new dimension in e-sports (electronic sports) entertainment this weekend. Gamers from across the country came together at "Topgun" to showcase their extreme abilities in combat and strategy based gaming events and not to mention win a load of cash! Quake 3 Arena was dominated all the way by clan Strike Force who went on to take all three top prizes. Finally need for speed attracted both beginners and veteran players. This is one event that lived up to its hype.
Nexus was the Networking paradigm at Synapse 2004. It consisted of two events Fortress and Catechise. In Fortress teams where supposed to develop a corporate network out of few given computers, secure it and then attack other teams' network. The strongest network, which survived the onslaught of its competitors, was the winner. Catechise was an innovative networking quiz where participants were made IP packets and where routed or misrouted depending upon the answers they give. Teams with maximum corrected answers reached the destinations earliest and scored highest.
As impressive and publicity grabbing as the practical products of engineering might be, it was never wise to forget the theory on which engineering as a field is based. A hors d'oeuvre for Synapse 2004. Triathlon was designed to test the knowledge of the participants in these fields at the highest possible level. TRIATHLON was a platform for those brilliant minds to present their concepts and receive recognition for their efforts and successes. Event was a great success; enthusiasm in the participant was fabulous.
Amidst all the event one event that was unique in it's from was bamboozle, circuit-debugging contest. In the prelims 20 teams were scrutinized out of 50 teams for the final event. Finals were exciting 45 minutes where the teams were given a puzzle and a bugged circuit based on it.
Googleock Holmes was the last scheduled event of the techfest. As Expected, people thronged to the event with some last hope of moolah and of course expecting lots of fun. The event was sponsored by Microsoft and attracted 192 teams from all over the country, which counts to close to 700 students. Due to unforeseen rush registrations were restricted to 120 teams only.
The event was planned initially for five hours, but due to public demand it was extended by an hour. Even after that students were asking for more! Till the last second teams were pouring the Googleock office with answers; such enthusiasm was not seen in the college before. Everyone was running around the campus in search of the correct answers. Finally three teams moved into the final round, resulting in heartbreaks for rest of the teams, but that's part and parcel of the game. So finally we had our winners at 1:00 AM in the morning, after answering close to 20 questions. The event received the distinction of being the most successful event and the most loved event.
Warehouse, conducted in our spacious sports complex was organized for the 'edutainment' of the participants as well as visitors. During the 3 days of the festival, we screened in the Warehouse, seven interesting and informative Discovery videos like 'Inside the space station', 'Deep inside the titanic', 'Future cars' etc. In all seven on the spot quizzes on various themes like 'Computers', 'Business', 'Astronomy', 'Trivia' were conducted through which more than 100 prizes were distributed. There were arrangements for chess and computer games as well as for watching Cricket video clips. With such a varied convergence of different sources of edutainment under one roof, Warehouse fascinated one and all.
In nutshell, Synapse 2004 proved to be fruitful learning experience and provided new avenues for future growth.
Features