Institute of Smart Structures and Systems
In Association with Dept of Electrical Communication Engineering,
Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, India
26-27 April 2019
The Institute of Smart Structures and Systems (ISSS), is happy to announce the second Researchers’ Forum for Post Graduate Students and Researchers on Micro and Smart Systems. This event will be held in association with the Department of Electrical Communication Engineering (ECE) at the Indian Institute of Science on 26-27 April 2019. This event is intended to provide an excellent platform for researchers across the country to come together and interact with each other. In addition, the first ISSS Conclave for Women in Technology will be held at the same location.
Format of the Event
The event will have inspiring talks by leaders of select Startup Companies on innovation landscape in this area, Prominent Academicians on opportunities in Academic Institutions, Industry leaders on opportunities available in Industries and Research Laboratories.
A highlight of this event will be three minute talk (3MT) and poster presentation by participating researchers in five streams namely, Physics of Devices, Modeling and Simulation, Smart Materials, Fabrication Technologies and Systems & Applications.
Awards
The best poster at this event will be rewarded. In addition, PhD students who are completing their work during the academic year 2018-19 will be considered for the ISSS PhD student Award for 2019. This award carries a cash prize of Rs 25,000 and an award certificate. This award will be decided based on overall evaluation of the research work among participants of this event. Criteria for this award include the poster presented, evaluation of relevance of the work in focus areas of ISSS, previous publication and contributions to ISSS. An Appreciation Certificate will be given to the research supervisor of the winner of this award.
Eligibility for Participants
JRF/ SRF / Full time research scholars / Postgraduate students of recognized institutions/universities anywhere in India are eligible to apply. National MEMS Design Centers and other institutes with research groups in the above areas are encouraged to sent participants. Only the first 50 participants will be accepted, on a first-come first-served basis. Those attended 2018 edition of this event will not be eligible for travel support from the organizers.
There is NO registration fee to attend this event. However, all candidates must fill the request form and upload a synopsis with details of their research work (with graphs and figures) to demonstrate their original research contributions. In addition, they may also include links to any previously published papers.
How to Apply (as Participant)
Prior registration using the online APPLICATION FORM is required to attend this event. Subject to availability, applicants will receive a provisional acceptance. In order to provide a fair opportunity the maximum number of interested participants, the registration will be confirmed only for the first 50 outstation participants AFTER uploading the soft copies of travel documents (ticket) and a draft for poster in the prescribed format within the deadline mentioned in the provisional acceptance mail.
TA / DA Support (for Participants)
Participants must make their own arrangements to travel to Bangalore to attend this event. Eligible ISSS members and full time research students who have completed at least three years of post graduate research work will be eligible for limited travel support from the organizers. Up to 3 Tier AC train fare by the shortest route may be reimbursed to outstation participants on production of actual travel bills, boarding pass etc. Those attended 2018 edition of this event will not be eligible for travel support from the organizers. If requested, a shared accommodation in may be arranged by the organizers for up to three nights only at a Guest House close to the Indian Institute of Science.
For details please Contact: Prof Veda Sandeep isss.forum@gmail.com
Open Invitation for other Attendees
This event is collocated with ISSS Conclave for Womens in Technology. Apart from registered participants and special invitees, Principals and Heads of Departments of Academic Institutions and Managers and Project Leaders of industries are welcome to attend this event and interact with participants and invitees. Those charged with staff hiring are specially invited to join us.
TENTATIVE AGENDA
26.04.2019 Friday
9.00AM: Registration
9.30AM: Inaugural Keynote Address by Prof Rohini Godbole
10.30AM: Coffee/Tea
11.00AM: Panel Session on Technology Landscape for Women
Panelists: Prof Rohini Godbole (IISc), Dr. P. Srikumar, (NIAS), Dr Saritha (Green Cosmos Enery), Lt Gen VJ Sundaram (NDRF), Dr. Anjana Jain (NAL),
02.00PM: 3MT Session I (3 minute Presentation by Researchers; 3 slides max by each participant)
03.00PM: Visit to posters and Tea/Coffee
04.00PM : Panel Session on Transformation Required in Academia for Achieving Gender Parity
Panelists: Prof GK Ananthasuresh (IISc), Dr. Dheepa Srinivasan (Intech-DMLS), Dr Asha Garg (DRDO), Dr. Jayanthi (NAL), Prof. Anurekha Sharma (Kurukshetra Univ)
27.04.2019 Saturday
9.30AM: 3MT Session II (3 minute Presentation by Researchers; 3 slides max by each participant)
10.30AM: Visit to posters and Tea/Coffee
11.00AM: Panel Session on Funding Avenues for Startup and Academia
Panelists: Prof. Navakanta Bhat (IISc/Pathshod), Dr. Rajiv Jain (GTRE), Prof. S. Mohan (IISc), Prof S. Gopalakrishnan (IISc), Dr Vidyashankar BR (GE)
12.15PM: Valedictory Session, Distribution of Awards
Venue: Golden Jubilee Seminar Hall, ECE Dept, IISc, Bangalore
Report on the First event held on 27-28 March 2018
ISSS in association with CeNSE, IISc., organized a Researchers’ Forum on 27th and 28th or March, 2018 at CeNSE. The event was organized to bring together research scholars from across the country and provide a platform to share their work. Dr. Kota Harinarayana inaugurated the event and provided a key-note address highlighting the current eco-system in the country for smart systems, smart technologies, especially in the context of initiatives like ‘Make in India’ and smart cities development. Prof. Rudra Pratap presented a brief overview of CeNSE and INUP initiatives to provide high quality and state of the art infrastructure for fabrication and characterization of micro systems to not just the IISc students and staff, but to the community in the country at large. He exhorted the research community to make full use of the infrastructure to realize the smart devices that are developed.
More than 35 posters presentations were arranged to showcase their work to the smart systems community at large. The topics ranged from Physics of Devices, Modeling and Simulation, Smart Materials, Fabrication Technologies to Systems & Applications. While a most of these posters were on sensors, a few actuators based applications development were also presented. A special feature of this event was the three panel discussions that were arranged to deliberate on some of the important aspects regarding the careers of researchers. These themes were a) career opportunities for researchers: Industry and Academia perspective, b) Funding avenues for startup and Academia and c) Career Opportunities -Research Perspective. Eminent panelists representing premier academic institutions, R&D Labs, Industries including start-ups took part to share their perspectives and respond to the questions and comments from the research scholars. ISSS wishes to thank all panelists for their support.
It was refreshing to note that quite a few of the researchers doing their Masters or Ph.Ds considered becoming entrepreneurs. Hence quite a few discussion points were on what are the support mechanisms in terms of funding, mentoring and incubation for start-ups. Another prominent topic of discussion was paucity of fabrication facilities for MEMS devices. Notably only few fab facilities exist in the country and they are already loaded with long waiting lists. In this context, the idea of community chips where multiple compatible ideas would be combined into a single device and hence have a better chance of getting the design tested and validated.
From Career development perspective, the industry expectations in terms of having a more holistic awareness of the broad domain, product and process orientation, customer or application identification and cost consciousness were amply highlighted. Awareness of Technology and Manufacturing Readiness Levels (TRL and MRL) is highly beneficial to differentiate in the industrial career opportunities realm. Overall the consensus among the panelists in different panels was that this is the right time for a budding researcher to pursue his career and blossom in this exciting technology domain.
Pitch talk sessions wherein researchers were given an opportunity to present for a few minutes to the audience a gist of their research work were also well received. Based on the posters and their presentation, two awards were given away to the presenters. Springer sponsored gift coupons for 500 Euros each for these awardees and these were given away by Prof. V K Aatre.
Winners of the Springer sponsored best posters awards were
- Sumeeth Sharma, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi
- Richa Mishra, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
ISSS expresses its gratitude to Springer for supporting these awards, and to CeNSE, IISc for cohosting the event and providing all logistic support.
Last but not the least, untiring efforts of Dr. Veda Sandeep Nagaraja, ISSS GC member and chairperson of the education sub-committee are appreciated and placed on record. Right from conception of the event to the successful completion of the same, Dr. Veda played an exemplary role and a fair share of the success of the event is due to her. ISSS is immensely grateful to her. ISSS is also thankful to several volunteers and members who strived to make this event a success.