As of now, a google on ‘Tech vista’ doesn’t find the relevant info on the first few sites listed. So a search should probably bring up my blog :D
Tech vista is the research symposium conducted by Microsoft Research India. Microsoft has few research centers around the world. Here is the list of it. MSR is located in Banglore, India.
There is a little bit of deviation. These are my views on research in India. I am just an undergraduate. I would love to hear your opinions too.
It’s known that India doesn’t give research the importance it deserves. Many don’t choose it as their career because it doesn’t always get you good cash! Few decades back the situation in India was worse. We hardly had any job opportunities and all regional movies had this scene – the hero being rejected from interview to interview. Things are different now. We have loads of opportunities. We have to develop and not just sustain. And technological development without research is impossible.
Most children are taught that the point in going to school and learning things (scoring marks) was to get a highly paid job. That makes sense to some extent. But most careers are chosen based on the student’s perception of his own ability, the amount of cash and totally neglecting his interest.
Talking about the general advice given to students who aspire to pursue undergraduate education at Anna University, SAFETY is the most important factor :P I was told it was always wise to take ECE as your stream if you want to do engineering because IT companies prefer them (the cream of XII std students chose it leaving other departments to the rest) and the next reason was funnier!!! To support that reason here is a small situation which you will be told – You are an ECE student, working in an IT company because you were so good in electronics and communication. The computer industry (most people use this word) goes down. Companies which requires ECE graduates are going to prefer you to the fresh uder graduates coming out of 232 engineering colleges. Is this reason logical?
It’s the responsibilty of the government to motivate students, provide opportunity and make research happen. With such poor opportunites to flourish as a researcher and poor pay, students won’t be ready to take up research. Government allocating money for research is not enough. Apart from funding research, people also should be paid more! All this doesn’t mean that I say there is no research! Many people are doing it even if it’s not given the recognition it ought to be given! The number of graduates pursuing research in India is far lesser than other developed countries. And the point I am trying to make – Things like MSR are definitely going to produce opportunities for research scholars.
Back to MSR Symposium.
The aim of the symposium was stated as ‘motivating students for pursuing research as their career’. It began in the morning around 8:00 am. The motivation for my going there was not Microsoft. It was prof John Hopcroft, IBM Professor of Engineering and Applied Mathematics in Computer Science at Cornell University, honored with A.M. Turing Award. I know him because I had his text book for Theory of computation. This was the introduction given to him – If you have not read his book, you don’t deserve a degree in computer Science.
The list of speakers were :
- Prof John Hopcroft – Computer Science in the future
- Prof Shafi Goldwasser, MIT – Program Obfuscation
- Prof. Shree K Nayar , Columbia University – Computational Cameras
- Dr. Vijay Chandru, phd MIT – Computational Biology
- Dr. Richard Szeliski, Microsoft Research – Weaving the World’s Photos
- Richard F Rashid, senior Vice President,MSR – Making an Impact
The talks were interesting. They didn’t go too much into technical stuffs and abstracted to the level what would make students interested. They obviously didn’t want students to run away. After that talk was over, I talked with prof. Hopcroft :)
We had a live demo on ‘India Digital Heritage’. They had used a technology called Photosynth. Rough idea on photosynth: What they do is, they build a digital 3-d model of an object or scene by capturing multiple images from different angles. They combine all this photographs into a single interface. You can also look at an object from different view points from which the photographs of the object were taken. The transition from one view point to another gives you a feel as though you are moving from this place to another! The point is you get a virtual scene in which you can travel, zoom in for more detail, generate detail and lot more (I know only this much). You can also build your own 3-d models by using their site. Have a look at it. You can synth your own photos. That’s what they call! Use the wiki for more info!
There were also abstract posters displayed by phd students. We had fun hearing new concepts and it also felt good to question phd students: P.
They also talked about the research activity at Microsoft and about Microsoft surface! It will be a sort of table that can interact with real word objects – your hand, brush, glass, mobile phones and more! If you haven’t heard about surface, don’t miss it!! Google for it!
This post is getting longer. Will add more in the next post!
Many people from my department had turned up including HOD of my department. It was all fun! Don’t miss it the next year. Word of caution – It’s not the academic developers conference conducted my Microsoft ;) lolz!
