In this article, T5E covers the third Research Conclave: the Centre for Innovation’s (CFI) annual conference meant for industry experts and academics to appreciate the technological innovation at IIT Madras.
CFI is India’s largest student-run technical organization, with 14 clubs and 8 competition teams as of October 2024. The clubs are in charge of conducting events for the student body year-round, while simultaneously working on individual projects. The competition teams work to their own schedules, striving to participate and win at global innovation competitions.
The annual Research Conclave and Open House (held in March) are CFI’s twin annual flagship events. This year’s Research Conclave, held on 26th October 2024, was chaired by the Dean of Students, Professor Sathyanarayana N. Gummadi, and the Faculty Advisor of CFI, Professor Prabhu Rajagopal.
Sarthak, the former executive head of CFI, and founder of Matterize, a 3D-printing start-up, was the first person I approached for an interview. My first question: What is the significance of the Research Conclave in contrast with CFI’s other flagship event, the Open House?
Sarthak: “The primary aim is that by conducting an event halfway through the tenure, clubs get an opportunity to interact with potential investors, professors, and other peers to demonstrate what we’ve done until now. If we ask for stakeholder funding on promises without evaluable work, it is certainly less credible. Research Conclave resolves this by providing a good checkpoint for projects and enabling clubs to get feedback, seed funding, and requisite course corrections promptly. Open House is where stakeholders get to see the fruits of the students’ efforts and hype up enthu freshies for the next tenure.”
I then asked how it felt to be here as an alumnus having a startup at Research Park.
Sarthak: “It’s great to be back here. As the head, I was quite preoccupied at the previous research conclaves, but it’s now nice to see all the projects at leisure.”
To begin his journey in the technical sphere, he worked in his second year on the Hogwarts Chessboard project in the Electronics Club. In his third year, he had the opportunity to present his work at the first-ever research conclave as the head of the 3D-printing club. He then presided over the research conclave himself as the executive head in his fourth year. In the midst of it, he mentioned how wonderful it was to see CFI grow and evolve into its current stage of success.
Next, I interviewed Asmitha and Sathyapriya, the heads of Sahaay, the Social Innovation Club. “All of us at the club are passionate about social innovation and technology. All of us see problems in our everyday lives, many of which have a compact and cost-effective solution. As students, we have a moral responsibility to help society, and as passionate engineers, we aim to come up with novel ways to mitigate day-to-day problems,” said Asmitha.
I also explored Pathpal, a Sahaay project. Pathpal is social innovation at its best: by mounting a camera on the walking sticks of visually impaired people, it helps them identify objects in front of them. It is an elegant fusion of computer vision and image processing to help visually impaired individuals perform tasks such as grocery shopping easily. The aim of this is to reduce the need for dependence on others and improve self-reliance—a noble cause.
Pure science research topics are always of dubious utility, but the Mathematics Club and Horizon (the Physics and Astronomy Club) proved us wrong. Project Dynamix models dynamical systems using Category Theory. Dynamical systems include differential equation models of epidemics such as COVID and the financial world. Changing these models is difficult and complicated – that is where Category Theory, an advanced branch of mathematics, comes in. This enables non-technical users to modify the models in a simple and intuitive way. This will revolutionize the field of epidemic modelling; doctors with no mathematical knowledge can now create models for COVID and other diseases easily.
I then talked to Arjun, an enthusiastic second-year from the Electrical Engineering department working on the AI club project – AI Rahman. The aim is to generate a fusion of Western and Indian music using AI. AI to generate Western music already exists, but there are no indigenous AI projects to generate music with Indian elements. The project aims to generate music using the MIDI format compatible with Digital Audio Workstations used by sound engineers and music directors. The project has also been pitched to the origin of the name, the legend – AR Rahman himself. It would truly be amazing if we could hear a fusion of the Beatles and Ilayaraja – created by AI, no less!
I even came across projects with crucial applications in the fields of defense and security. Virtual Defense, a project by the Electronics Club, aims to provide skill training in the field of defense using Virtual reality. This creates an add-on that can be added to existing guns to provide a training arena. Rapid Patch, a project by the Cybersecurity Club, enables software updates to be run without downtime with critical military applications.
Many of the projects also draw inspiration from nature. Project NeuroSpike by the Biotech Research Club implements Neuromorphic computing on actual hardware (an FPGA). This form of computing aims to mimic human nerve cells and the brain. CoBALT, a project by Team IBoT, aims to create swarms of bots that mimic bees and perform complex tasks in transportation and defense.
Next, I decided to speak to Ketan, one of the first-year visitors. Freshies will be the future of the clubs, and these exhibitions are partially in hope that they will see the technical prowess displayed and be inspired to join. Ketan initially came to see the Mathematics Club’s projects but then continued to explore other clubs. One enthusiastic freshie secured: Ketan mentioned to me that he was extremely enthused to join these clubs in the next year.
I took another detour to talk to Vidhya Bharathvaj, an influencer attending the Conclave. She felt that it was amazing to see students coming up with tech innovations that are the need of the hour. She herself has a physics background, and she mentioned that the SunCast project, a collaborative effort from the AI Club and Horizon that predicts solar flares using AI, was her personal favourite.
Last, but certainly not least, I ventured to take a look at the competition teams. Each of the teams works for one or more annual competitions with a specific purpose. The teams span from autonomous vehicles, rockets, Mars rovers, solar-powered cars, autonomous underwater vehicles, and genetic engineering to full-fledged racing cars.
The team members of Avishkar Hyperloop aim to build a version of Elon Musk’s Hyperloop, a high-speed transportation system that would revolutionize travel. With this, one could go from Chennai to Bangalore in just thirty minutes at a fraction of the cost of airlines. The challenges that the team faces are safety, reliability, and scalability. It’s easy to make small models work, but building the same thing on the full scale proves to be a daunting task. Presenting their models at a worldwide conference is certainly formidable, but Avishkar pours their heart and soul into the task—pulling all-nighters and working days on end—a common sight seen across CFI when competition deadlines approach.
Personally, I am a veteran of CFI – I was the founder and head of the Mathematics Club for a year and a half, and was part of the Programming Club, Horizon, Cybersecurity Club, and Sahaay in my time. For what it’s worth, here’s what I think of the whole business. In our online freshie year, we’d attended the Open House for an in-person meeting, which was my first exposure to CFI. I was bedazzled by all the technological advancements around me. In my second year, I presented the project ‘Mathematical Modelling of Physical Systems’ as a Horizon project member in the first Research Conclave: this project is a long-lost forefather of the current Dynamix. The current CFI building didn’t exist back then; we worked in a makeshift shed under NAC.
Later that year, we founded the Mathematics Club and eventually presented our work at the second Research Conclave, in the new Sudha and Shankar Innovation Hub. That was a milestone for our club in some sense, and I was quite proud. Looking at it a year later, I feel that life has come to a full circle: now as I get to pen an article about the same, it’s amazing to see everything CFI has achieved over the years. The event being held at Food for Thought couldn’t be more poetic.
Innovation is not a race; it’s not even a marathon; it’s an Odyssey. It doesn’t matter when we get there or how; sometimes all that matters is everything we’ve accomplished and innovated along the way.
Written By: Haricharan B.
