The annual technology festival of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) will be held in virtual mode this year. The Annual Tech Festival, Shaastra, will be conducted between February 25 and February 28. Held annually, Shaastra focuses on a unique and relevant theme every year to integrate technology into that sphere. The theme for this year ‘Archi-Tech', which brings together the fields of architecture and technology, aims to highlight the growing opportunities that technology can play in the field of architecture and design.
As part of the online tech festival, virtual rendering of important sites of IIT Madras campus will also be created. This, an IIT Madras statement said, will enable a viewer to virtually walk through a location in IIT Madras and provide as close to a real-life experience as possible. All the events will be available online to the public free of cost. The total prize money for the contests will be worth around Rs 17 lakh. This is the first time the IIT Madras's tech-festival, one of the largest student-run events in the country, will be held completely in virtual mode.
Shaastra 2021
Dr Shaikh Faruque Ali, Faculty Advisor, Shaastra 2021, IIT Madras, said: “With the team's unique effort to recreate the overall IITM for an overall immersive experience, I'm really certain that this first ever virtual edition is definitely going to be a benchmark with lots of opportunities and enriching initiatives.”
“Shaastra 2021 will not be any less attractive, educational and entertaining than its previous years. The team has mapped everything we had on ground to online space,” he added.
Several eminent dignitaries will address the Spotlight Lecture Series as part of the virtual tech festival. Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, World Health Organization; Nobel Laureates Dr Muhammad Yunus, Founder of Grameen Bank, Dr Barry Barish, American experimental physicist; Dr K. Radhakrishnan, Former Chairman, Space Commission/Secretary, Department of Space and Chairman, ISRO, are among those scheduled to address the students of IIT Madras this year.
An exhibition as well will be held online this year, in which participants from across the country will get to showcase innovative and resourceful ideas from technologically feasible perspectives. The audience gets to witness first-hand the futuristic, creative and ingenious applications of science and technology in real life and proudly stand as a window into what the future holds, the IIT Madras statement added.
With the overall theme for Shaastra 2021 being ‘Schrödinger's Realms,' the IIT Madras students plan to host events that showcase infinite possibilities through their fascinating set of workshops, hackathons, competitions and Spotlight lectures.
The Shaastra Workshops are a unique series of online workshops conducted by technically-skilled people from the industry and IIT Madras community who would be sharing their knowledge through live interactions on a range of topics from technology to development to design. Workshops are being held on various topics such as 3D modelling with hands-on implementation in Fusion 360 software, Reinforcement Learning (RL).
Every year Shaastra rolls out unique, impactful and lasting social campaigns to better the lives of common people. This year the IIT Madras students have launched the ‘SHE CAN' campaign, aimed at empowering women with an elevated platform for their education, upskilling, awareness about opportunities, and financial literacy.
Shaastra 2021 Competitions
Shaastra 2021 also features various competitions including Boeing National Aeromodelling Competition, Drone Applications Hackathon 2021, All-Women's Hackathon -- She Hacks and the MTX HackOlympics to flaunt the participants' skills in cloud computing.
Shaastra will host an open house, in which research laboratories, department infrastructure, and projects will be showcased to the public. Virtual interactions in the open house will highlight the research projects and expertise available at the departments where members of the public can also interact with the researchers.
Student Projects will be on display as part of Centre for Innovation (CFI) Open House, where student innovators will showcase their recent work and achievements.
