The Chennai Convention Centre at Nandambakkam near Airport was all set to witness the event. 1500 was the expected audience who were brought to the hall by charted tour buses. MSR indeed took care of each and everyone who showed interest in attending the program. It was a day that answered thousands of questions in the minds of young people who were hesitant to pursue research as a career. It was a day when the field of Computer Science was celebrated like a festival.
Dr. P.Anandan from MSR, started the show by speaking in Tamil and telling the audience that he is a person from Chennai and it was great for him to have TechVista hosted in Chennai. Chennai is indeed privileged to have such great researchers who have given their life for the betterment of life of others to come down and talk to the novice Academic crowd. Dr. Anandan gave a brief introduction to the program and gave us an insight of TechVista that have happened in the past. This is the first time this event is happening in Chennai and it witnessed a huge turn over. It was launched by the Director of IITM.
During the inaugural function, Mr. Adithya Sankar demonstrated the power of Photosynth, a Research product that was developed by Live Labs. In this process, the MSR wanted to have a native touch and demonstrated the technology with the Srivilliputur, Sri Andal Temple. The technology was an eye opener for most of the audience and was indeed the right way to kick start the day.
Session 1: The Session 1 consisted of lectures by Prof. John Hopcroft, Richard Szeliski and Prof. Shafi Goldwasser.
Talk by Prof. John Hopcroft:
It was indeed a pleasure to listen to his talk. Datas are present all around us be it in the web, satellite information etc. But how to tame these data was the glimpse given to the audience by his inspirational talk. He did throw light on a lot of youngsters who were craving to pursue research. It was a seed for me to take up my higher studies to sharpen my knowledge. He gave a real time example of how a bird’s location is tracked in the world and its applications in the field of Weather forecasting, hurricane direction prediction etc.
Talk by Dr. Richard Szeliski:
Dr. Richard’s presentation was speaking about the field of Computer vision and it was indeed a pleasure to listen to him. He made all our blind folded thoughts reach a clarity by speaking about how the technology of photosynth came to shape and how it works internally. This was indeed a beautiful presentation and it became the darling of all masses as it podcasted some of the un seen content which were soothing to the eyes too.
Talk by Prof. Shafi Goldwasser:
Security is not just a need today but has become a science by itself. How to improve security by the method of obfuscation was discussed in this mind blowing session which people can understand provided they have domain knowledge of what security and Cryptography actually is. This was a sizzling talk for those who aspire to be an expert in information security. Her talk gave us an insight of what all should not be done when considering security as an issue. Obfuscation means making things complex but resulting in the same output without changing the functionality of the code.
Dr. P. Anandan, MSR India Prof. John Hopcroft
Dr. Richard Szeliski Prof. Shafi Goldwasser
Session 2: The Session was a series of talk given by Richard Rashid, Prof. Shree K Nayar and Vijay Chandru.
Talk by Rick Rashid:
Rick’s talk was showcasing the various research products from Microsoft Research labs across the world. The masterpiece was World wide telescope that allows us to have the entire view of the galaxy like the view from the telescope. His talk also included a research product Boku – Simplified programming for Kids in which they can create their own games without having much of computer knowledge. This was really attractive too. He also spoke about the live traffic suggestion system that is a brilliant product by itself.
Talk by Prof. Shree K Nayar:
What you see is different from What you like to see? This was clearly explained to us by the inspirational talk by Prof. Shree Nayar. A lot of us understood the fact that Camera isn’t just a device that captures still photographs but the one that can be taken as a challenge and re engineered to make experience reach better shape. The Wide angle camera that was used for the video conferencing in which 4 people can do the conf with one camera was really attractive. Design of 4π camera that is considered as a challenge was also explained in this speech. This was an eye opener for a lot of the audience.
Talk by Vijay Chandru:
Strand’s life sciences is a company that deals with the field of Computational biology. Vijay Chandru Sir delivered a brilliant Session that would have inculcated a feeling in the mind of the listeners that Computers were invented to facilitate the biological problems that we are facing today. Its applications in the field of Medicine, Surgery and cure of Cancer, HIV were all discussed in this talk.
Richard Rashid Prof. Shree K Nayar
Vijay Chandru
TECHVISTA 2008, is a day to remember and is a day that is meaningful in the life of those who are interested in celebrating Computer Science. It was a god’s gift for me to be present there.
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