A Report on the  First Winter Academy in Asia

Prof. Durst is discussing the issue of setting up a High Performance Computing Centre.

1. The Academy

A novel workshop, known as the Winter Academy was organized in IIT Kanpur. The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD,  GERMANY) sponsored the Academy. The duration of the Academy was between December 8 and December 19, 2002. The undergraduate  students from IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Guwahati participated in the Academy.

The major attraction of the workshop was a series of lectures on advanced research topics by the participating undergraduate students.

Mrs. H. Bossmann, Director of DAAD in India, was the Chief Guest at the opening ceremony.  Prof. S. G. Dhande, Director of Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, explained the need for research activities at  the under graduate level in his presidential speech.Prof. H. Ryssel, a very well known scientist in the area of Electronic Materials, delivered the plenary talk on Manufacturing of Silicon Wafers. The participating German University, in the Academy, was Friedrich Alexander University (FAU) of  Erlangen-Nuremberg. Prof. Dr. h. c. Franz Durst, (FAU), Prof. Dr. H. Ryssel (FAU), PD Dr. F. Dinkelacker (FAU), Prof. G. Biswas (IIT Kanpur), Prof. R. P. Singh (IIT Kharagpur),  Prof. Subhash C. Mishra (IIT Guwahati)  took part in the Academy as the Instructors. In addition, Prof. Walter Arnold from the Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Testing (Saarbrucken, Germany), Dr. Biswajit Basu (TRDDC, Pune), Prof. Sanjay Mittal (IIT Kanpur), Prof. (Mrs.) Prabha Sharma (IIT Kanpur), Prof. Sandipan Moulic (IIT Kharagpur) and Prof. P. M. V. Subbarao (IIT Delhi) participated in the Academy as the moderators in different technical sessions. They also delivered lectures in their own fields of expertise. The subject Topics of the Academy were (i) Fluid and Thermal Sciences, (ii) Materials and (iii) Combustion. One student from the Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology Department of FAU, Ms. Mina Nishi participated in the Academy. The Indian students were from various disciplines, such as, Mechanical, Chemical, Aerospace, Civil, Metallurgy, Physics and Mathematics. Prof. Krishna Kumar, Prof. Kalyanmoy Deb and Prof. Keshav Kant extended their help and support to organize the Academy. Prof. S. G. Dhande, Director of IIT Kanpur provided his unstinted support  and cooperation at every stage of the activity. There were three parallel sessions based on the subject topics as mentioned above.

 

Prof. Durst, Prof. Dhande, Mrs. Bossmann and Prof. Ryssel are at the Inauguration Ceremony.

Session on Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer (conducted by Prof. F. Durst and Prof. G. Biswas)

This session had 17 presentations.  The presentations of Mr. Abhinandan Agarwal (IITK),
Mr. G. V. Reddy  (IITKGP),  Mr. Mayur Sah (IITKGP), Mr. Vivek Srivastava (IITK), Mr. Sandip Kumar (IITKGP), Mr. Kaushal   Mishra (IITK), Mr. Amit Shukla (IITG) and Ms. Mina Nishi (FAU) were extremely well received. Every lecture was followed  by a brainstorming discussion of about one hour.  Prof. Sandipan Ghosh Moulic of IIT Kharagpur, Prof. Sanjay Mittal of  IIT Kanpur and Prof. P. M. V.  Subbarao of IIT Delhi played a significant role in extending the discussions and converging to meaningful conclusions.

Session on Materials (conducted by Prof. H. Ryssel and Prof. R.P. Singh)

There were 16 presentations in this session. The presentations of Mr. Reetesh Ranjan (IITK), Mr. Akshay Kumar (IITKGP) Mr. D. Fuloria (IITK) and Mr. Anup Kohli (IITG) were very exciting. All the lectures were followed by the stimulating discussions. Prof. Walter Arnold and Prof. H. Ryssel showed many exciting demonstrations through computer animations. Dr. Baswajit Basu  (TRDDC) delivered an excellent lecture on Computer Simulation of Materials Processing.

Session on Combustion (conducted by Prof. F. Dinkelacker and Prof. S.C. Mishra)

This session had some 15 presentations. The presentation of Mr. Praveen Kumar (IITK), Mr. Ashutosh Gupta (IITKGP), Mr. Amresh Kumar (IITKGP), Mr. Mayank Kumar (IITK) and Mr. Bhupesh Chandra (IITG) were excellent. Prof. Dinkelacker delivered the opening lecture and Prof. S.C. Mishra  closed the session with his lecture on Radiative Transport.

2. Cultural Programme

In addition to the academic activities, the Winter Academy had some social outlets as well. The most notable social event was a cultural program organized by the campus community.

The program reflected the tradition of rich Indian Culture through a wide range of coverage starting from the Indian Classical Music to the Modern folk songs. Mrs. Amarabati Biswas sang Indian classical songs based on Raga Shyamkalyan. Mrs. Debjani Deb performed Kathyak dance and Ms. Sruti Vandana Sharma (a second year electrical engineering student) performed Bharat Natyam. Mrs. Brigbala Narayan and Mr. Devanand Pathak gave  them musical support. Mr. Krishnendu Chatterjee and Mr. Siddharta Chatterjee (both are students) performed western music concert on synthesizer and drums. Mr. Mukesh Jha, former organizer of the Students ' Music Club of the Institute, sang modern Hindi songs with his golden voice. Mrs. Amarabati Biswas also sang two lively folk songs from West Bengal and Goa. Ms. Debarati Bharadwaj and Ms. Rohini Mukerjee started the program by an Odisi dance, - Mangalacharan. The entire programs was explained to the audience though a sonorous narration of Mrs.  Oindrila Roychoudhury. It was a very well organized and melodious program.

3. Further Collaborations between FAU and IIT Kanpur

Prof.  F. Durst initiated some discussions on a long term collaboration between IIT Kanpur and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in the area of Advanced Computing. He is keen in extending the super computing facility of  the Regional Computing Centre, Munich to IITKanpur students.