The second edition of the Pragyan Youth Summit (PYS), the techno-managerial fest of NIT Trichy, was presented by the Confederation of Indian Industry and conducted on January 20 at The Westin in Chennai. Numerous students and corporate professionals participated in this annual event.
PYS 2018 explored the possibility of a better world, facilitated by technological advancements in the spheres of Artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), through its theme ‘Mission Smart Cities’.
Comprising of a ‘Pitchfest’ for students, panel discussion by eminent entrepreneurs and visionaries, a talk about waste management, a keynote speech highlighting the methods of ideating a smart city, and an informative workshop about smart city development, the summit promised to be an enlightening one for all the participants.
PYS began with a keynote address by Bipin Pradeep Kumar, co-founder and Director of Gaia Smart Cities, in which he threw light on a systematic model of developing one such city.
This was followed by PYS’ signature feature, Pitchfest. As many as eight participants pitched ideas related to Mission Smart Cities, and these proposals were analysed by judges — Vedang Sharma, Swami Raghavan, and Sakshi Ganeriwal from Paypal, Priya Mohan, senior incubation associate and communications manager, and Jayalakshmi Umadikar, senior manager at academic liaison from the IIT-M incubation Cell.
The winning idea, Methartis, belonged to Jayvardhan Rathi from NIT Trichy. The second and the third places went to Swati Dhamodaran from NIT Trichy and Vanthian Balasubramanian from SRM Institute of Science and Technology.
After the Pitchfest, a panel discussion was held on ‘Changing Technology for Future Cities’. Amiya Kumar Sahu (president of National Solid Waste Association of India), Karuna Gopal (founder of Foundation for Futuristic Cities), Amitabh Satyam (chief mentor at Smart City Transformations) and Srinivasa Raghavan Venkatachari (principal consultant at Tata Consultancy Services) formed the panel that was moderated by John Samuel Raja D (founder of How India Lives). This was followed by a 20-minute ‘Youth Talk’ by a Chennai-based entrepreneur, Siddharth Hande, who is the founder and CEO of Kabadiwalla Connect.
A one-of-a-kind workshop by CISCO Systems Inc was conducted and involved connected digital platforms and internet of things. It demonstrated strategies that could provide secure transmission of data between people.
Pragyan Youth Summit was finally concluded with the valediction ceremony.