A Busy Week with NPTEL, Damascus Sword and Nebula

Last week was a unusually busy one.

To start with Prof. Roddam Narasimha visited IIIT on last sunday. He was on his way back to Bangalore from BPUT convocation. I had written about him earlier.

Prof. Mangala Sundar of IIT Madras visited BPUT in connection with NPTEL. I was there in my capacity as the Chairman of ICT committee of BPUT. He wanted more discussion with me. So I invited him to IIIT. He discussed NPTEL and other issues with me. I have experimented a lot with Technology Enabled Learning in the past. I shared my experience with him. He appreciated that a lot and wanted our involvement in NPTEL development.

Prof. Omkar Nath Mohanty visited to address the students. He spoke about his research on development of auto-body parts. Fluent, incisive, and lucid was his talk. He, of course, aout damascus sword and India's metallurgical prowess in the millenia gone by. I demonstrated our Hibiscus to him. He had a look around the campus and expressed his appreciation.

Finally, there was nebula. The students were planning for a party to welcome themselves since there are no seniors to welcome them. I told them that I will extend all support. They came out with an idea to invite some DJ. I told them that IIIT is about show casing student talent not a DJ's. They took my message and prepared well. They prepared a budget and discussed with the faculty about their plans.

On sunday (today), I reached about 10 minutes after 11 in the campus. The students told me that they will be about 20 minutes late. The programme began about 45 minutes behind schedule. The first few items were tentative with many hiccups. The girls danced with practically no music as the sound system could not be connected. Then the tempo picked up. Things got better as the time went on. There were dance, play, mimicry, quizzing, musical chair and many others. The students got the audience involved. They involved the faculty in a few items.

The anchoring was very good. Quite a few students participated. I was very happy with the quality of the programme.

Then, there was lunch. The students organized a banquet style lunch for the faculty. The students were very indulgent and fussed a lot over little conveniences of the faculty.

One can see a strong bonding developing among the students and Institute and the Faculty. I hope it continues to flourish and every student get an opportunity to exhibit his/her talent.