This lecture series was instituted by the batch of 1982 in memory of their batchmate, Ranjan Kumar, who unfortunately passed away at a young age. Mr. Ranjan Kumar was an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and had graduated with a B.Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1986. He was an entrepreneur, who had set up his own software company, Cygnus Soft, headquartered in Pune, India.