IET India latest

India Semiconductor Association partnership

IET India signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the India Semiconductor Association (ISA), the premier trade body representing the Indian Electronic System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) industry on 4 May.

Through this partnership the IET seeks to strengthen industry ties, encouraging the exchange of knowledge, and promoting understanding and cooperation among IET members and the members of ISA.

The IET and ISA will jointly organise membership promotion activities to increase awareness of the member benefits and activities of each institution. The ISA and IET will also work together on joint projects, events, conferences, forums, publications, standards, educational materials and awards.

Speaking at the occasion, IET chief executive and secretary Nigel Fine said: “India is a key part of our growth plans and this collaboration with ISA further strengthens our growing international network of partnerships. I am delighted that this new partnership with the ISA will help Indian engineers develop their sector expertise, widen their professional community and access world-class engineering intelligence via the IET.”

Mr P.V.G. Menon, ISA president, said: “We are delighted to enter into an agreement with IET to offer content and skill development programmes to our members. We believe this is crucial to realising our vision to make India a preferred global destination for ESDM, and to achieve the goal of building a US $400 billion ESDM sector in India by 2020. Our engineers and professionals will benefit enormously from tapping into IET’s rich content and expertise base, and we hope to proliferate international best practices in Indian industry through such alliances.”

IET ISA CXO Conclave debate

Following the signing, the IET together with the ISA hosted a CXO Conclave to discuss the topic ‘Expectation of large energy consumers from the technology industry’ via a panel discussion, moderated by Alok K. Brara, CEO, India Infrastructure Publishing. Panellists comprised industry experts J.D.N. Sharma, ex-CEO and board of directors of Easun Reyrolle, Prakash Nayak, director of Power Engineering and Automation Pvt Ltd, chairman Power Panel, IET India, and Narang N. Kishor, mentor and principal design architect of Narnix Technolabs. The expert panel steered a highly insightful discussion and touched upon key points including the absence of standard metrics to measure power pollution; bridging the knowledge and efficiency gap in order to lead renewable solar and wind energy; exploring new ways of generating, saving and storing energy; and the importance of captive power and energy conservation for large energy consumers by way of a thorough understanding of their energy requirements.

A key measure of the success of the event was not just the sizable presence of an audience of more than 80 attendees, but also the knowledge it demonstrated on the issues and dynamics of the power/energy industry. Members of the audience posed intelligent questions to the panellists in areas of protocol and management, FIT schemes, power equipment and maintenance and DC grids.

The evening ended with a networking dinner, providing a rich opportunity for Nigel Fine to interact and exchange ideas with senior members of the industry.

Member Matters

IET India brought out its first issue of Member Matters, an exclusive India member newsletter in April 2012. The 16-page newsletter strives to be an important channel of communication, facilitating a robust information flow between the IET and its members and communities. Member Matters aims to convey two messages: that members matter to the IET and that the newsletter is all about member matters!

The newsletter has already received some great feedback from members about content, design, presentation and depth of information. There has also been a good response to ‘Word Matters’ a reader competition with answers within newsletter articles. Catch-up with the online version of the newsletter.

IET 360^o

The Dr M G R Educational and Research Institute in association with the IET organised IET 360^o, a techno-cultural fest. The event started with a two-day comprehensive workshop for engineering students on robotics, with hands-on training in association with SakRobotix. The two-day workshop provided participants with an understanding of the assembling, programming and testing of robots and was attended by nearly 140 participants.

This was followed by a one-day innovation workshop by Pavan Soni, Innovation Evangelist, Doctoral Studies, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. It included an idea-generation session, where students form groups of ten, presenting ten business ideas to an audience. After a detailed analysis, all the groups were asked to build a prototype of their ideas, which was again examined by the jury.

IET 360^o is also well-known as a technical and cultural extravaganza. Classical dance performances, contemporary dance, a fashion show, technical fests and a rock band performance by Junkyard Groove made the event highly exciting and reiterated the fact that engineering talent in India is multifaceted. IET 360^o also encouraged the collaborative and team spirit of engineering students while fostering creativity.

Texas Instruments Analog Design Contest

A team of IET Student members from the College of Engineering Pune (COEP) won the prestigious Texas Instrument Analog Design contest, receiving the top award of $10,000.

The winning team of Yogesh Palkar, Pranav Naik, Sanket Naik and Rahul Kulkarni had to battle it out with 500 other teams before they could celebrate victory. The IET Student members presented a project on ‘PC-based storage oscilloscope’, under the guidance of IET Fellow Professor M.A. Joshi.

The Texas Instruments India Analog Design Contest was introduced in 2009 to promote system-level design and innovation among students of Indian universities. Since its inception, the contest has attracted a large number of student teams across India.

Process automation and developments

Last month the South Asia Communities Committee (SACC) and IET Kolkata Local Network jointly organised a technical lecture on ‘Process automation – challenges and developments in 21st century’. Two eminent speakers from the industry, Amalendu Kumar, from GM Projects, Barauni Refinery, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, and Sudip Sen, country manager, Process Automation Division, Pepperl & Fuchs India Pvt Ltd, Bangalore, delivered the lectures and shared their experiences and insights on process automation.

The technical lecture was followed by a panel discussion which aimed at understanding the status quo of the Indian process industry and process automation. Discussions followed on the major challenges faced by the process automation sector and the developments needed to keep pace. The panel noted that a robust collaboration between the academia and industry can go a long way in contributing to the progress of process automation in India.

The panel discussion was chaired by Professor Samarjit Sengupta, chairman, IET Kolkata Local Network, and Dr K.K. Bandopadhyay delivered a vote of thanks.

Stronger member growth

Office bearers of the IET and chairs of IET India Local Networks met in Kolkata to discuss member growth. Dr Rajshri Gupta, secretary, IET Kolkata Local Network, kicked off the discussion, which was followed by suggestions and recommendations made by Dr Hemantkumar Aiyer, Mr Joy Desai, Ms Akila Jayakumar, Mr Rajeev Gupta and Dr Surajeet. The group discussed issues including internal and external marketing, the need for corporate focus, counsellors for student members and expertise pool creation. The members also agreed that there should be a measurement criterion for the performance of each Local Network towards member growth.

Shekhar Sanyal, country head - IET India, fielded questions from the group and added his perspective to the recommendations. He also shared the IET India plans with the group and strongly recommended the formation of an IET India ‘expert pool’ that can provide collaborative consultancy to corporate partners, thereby strengthening the value of partnership with the IET.

CSTS 2012

The BP Poddar Institute of Management and Technology together with IET Kolkata Local Network jointly organised a national conference entitled CSTS 2012, inaugurated by Professor T.K. Ghosal. IET representative Professor Samarjit Sengupta, chairman, IET Kolkata Local Network, was also present. The event facilitated knowledge sharing between industry and academia and was attended by over 60 prominent academics.

The road ahead

With the South Asia Volunteers Conference Weekend, PATW regional finals, and the Student Scholarship Programme shaping up, 2012 looks like a busy and eventful year. Watch this space for more updates!