Naveen Alex , a 2nd year student of The School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences has been promoted as a Young Member of the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS). Naveen was a Junior Fellow and has now been promoted from Junior Fellow to Young Member. He has also been selected as one of 200 bicentennial ambassadors of NYAS.
Category: General Topics
Krea University partners for OneShared.World “Rise or Fall Together” Virtual Summit
Krea University was one of the proud partners of RISE OR FALL TOGETHER: The OneShared.World Interdependence Summit 2020. The summit brought together some of the world’s most inspiring people, including a Special Teaching by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, keynote remarks by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, and performances by opera superstar Renée Fleming and Australian Sikh rap star L-FRESH the LION.
The summit will explore how recognizing the mutual responsibilities of our interdependence with each other and our shared ecosystem must underpin all efforts to solve our greatest common challenges, including pandemics, climate change, and systemic global poverty and inequality.
Prof Anil Srinivasan, a panelist at ‘Brand India- Arts, Crafts and Design festival’
India Foundation’s Center for Public Diplomacy and Soft Power is organizing a 5 day virtual festival, ‘Brand India- Arts, Crafts and Design festival’ from September 14-18.
Prof Anil Srinivasan, Associate Professor of Practice, Literature & the Arts joined a panel of celebrated artists on the 14th of September in the session, ‘Arts- Culture. Means and Contribution’. Prof Anil is a critically acclaimed pianist and experimental musician and the first to be awarded coveted Sangeet Natak Akademi youth award. He is a TED speaker, composer, popular columnist and founder of a hugely successful musical initiative- Rhapsody pioneering the idea of STEM learning using music and arts-based interventions.
During the 5-day global online festival the event aspires to have a mix of virtual walkthroughs, masterclass and panel discussions to help common minds understand the importance of arts, crafts and design and how culture and commerce can enable it both domestically and internationally.
The themes that the festival envisages to address are as follows:
Arts: Culture, means, and contribution
Crafts: Culture, means and contribution
Design: Historical overview, mapping India’s contribution and global influence
Tourism and Arts, Crafts and Design
Future: Use of technology to enable value addition and sustainable market access.
An engaging session on ‘Airport Operations’
In a highly engaging session, Satyaki Raghunath – Chief Strategy & Development Officer and T C Sajit – Strategy Group Member and Chief Human Resources Officer of Bangalore International Airport Limited interacted with the students at IFMR GSB, shedding light on various aspects that shape robust airport operations. They shared insights on the role of public-private partnerships in building India’s infrastructure. Emphasizing on the complex gamut of stakeholders come together to provide a unique passenger experience, they termed an airport ‘a city within a city’.
An interwoven evening with Amandeep Sandhu
In an interaction with the students and faculty at SIAS, author Amandeep Sandhu spoke about his book ‘Panjab-Journeys Through Faultlines’ (2019). ‘Panjab’, a well informed and carefully researched book on the history, geography, society, and economics of the land of the five rivers, is a deeply moving narrative of a journey the author undertook to discover and reconnect with his roots. In this process of learning, he re-introduces us to a land that we have all but forgotten.
Historically and culturally, known as the land of the ten Gurus and for the majestic Golden Temple, Panjab is also recognized for the physical barrier that it provides to safeguard the rest of the country; a land of brave soldiers, a place full of old-world charm. Among other things, it is famous for its spirit of sharing, haunting music, free-spirited dance style, culinary delights, and last but not the least, as the breadbasket of India.
Today, Panjab is also a land steeped in political movements, struggling for religious and caste identities, facing a gender imbalance and an imminent economic, social, and environmental downfall.
‘Panjab’, the book, documents these changes. Amandeep’s book acquaints the readers with the current Panjab, reeling under the after-effects of the three big changes that occurred in the previous century: the Partition of India and Pakistan, the Green Revolution, and the Khalistan non-movement. The book has seen critical, commercial, and emotional success at home and at places with large populations of Indian and Panjabi diaspora.
Amandeep’s talk focused on ‘land’ and its value in an agrarian society like ours. He interwove personal, historical, and societal recollections.
Kshitij Amodekar 1
Prof Kalyan Chakrabarti co-authors paper on “The happiness hormone and Parkinson’s disease”
Prof Kalyan Chakrabarti has published a paper on Parkinson’s disease with collaborators from University of Medicine and Max Planck Institute, Göttingen, Germany in the Journal of Neurochemistry.
About the Paper:
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is an incurable brain disorder that causes uncontrollable shaking, stiffness, and difficulty with walking, balance and coordination, along with psychological complications of dementia, depression and anxiety. In 2015, PD affected 6.2 millions people (more than 1 million cases in India) and caused about 1.2 L deaths globally. The symptomatic loss of motor function is due to the damage in the portion of midbrain that releases dopamine, commonly known as the “happiness hormone”. As a result, the standard treatment to control the symptoms of PD are related to dopamine like molecules. The cause of PD is unknown and the biological mechanism of PD is an active area of research. In the biomedical literature the role played by the protein alpha synuclein is well established. The related protein beta synuclein is reported to play a beneficial role in patients suffering from PD. In this paper the researchers have described their recent results that show that the interaction of dopamine with beta synuclein may act as a culprit in Parkinson’s disease.
Reference: Raina A, Leite K, Guerin S, Mahajani SU, Chakrabarti KS, Voll D, Becker S, Griesinger C, Bähr M & Kügler S “Dopamine promotes the neurodegenerative potential of beta-synuclein”, Journal of Neurochemistry, DOI: 10.1111/jnc.15134
Read the complete paper, here.
IFMR establishes Atal Incubation Centre ‘Catalyst’ in Jaipur
IFMR Society has set up an Atal Incubation Centre (AIC), Catalyst, under the aegis of the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), which is a flagship initiative of NITI Aayog. Established as a Section 8 entity, Catalyst AIC seeks to accelerate innovative, disruptive and inclusive tech solutions for the last mile. Over a five-year period, the program will work towards building a robust support system for entrepreneurs working to enhance livelihood opportunities for underserved segments in rural India, with a focus on rural artisans.
Home to a 200 million-plus strong artisan community, India’s handicrafts and handloom sector is deeply linked with its cultural heritage and is a crucial pillar to provide sustainable livelihood opportunities in rural areas. With the exception of a few supply chains, the sector is largely unorganised, and artisans have poor access to formal capital, weak exposure to new technologies, and markets. Inclusive tech applications, combined with relevant livelihood initiatives, can bring artisans into the fold of the formal economy, nurture greater inclusion and growth in rural areas.
The Catalyst AIC focuses on solutions that seek to strengthen access to digital financial services, improve supply chain management, skill development and workforce management, among others. It is unique in its value proposition as it provides startups with real-world test environments to rapidly test, iterate and deploy their solutions and integrate data-driven insights on their consumer segments to improve product design and delivery.
Located in Jaipur, the Catalyst AIC offers a dedicated incubation space of approx. 10,000 sq. ft. to incubatees. As part of the incubation program, selected incubatees will receive support in identifying target customer segments, piloting solutions, access to domain experts and fine-tuning business models, drawing on IFMR’s thought leadership and research centre LEAD at Krea University’s deep expertise in field-based research. Drawing on a broad spectrum of partners from the IFMR-Krea ecosystem, the Catalyst AIC incubation program will also facilitate relevant partnerships with educational and research institutes, corporates, startup ecosystem players, and investors.
Dr Sunder Ramaswamy, Vice Chancellor of Krea University shared, “The Catalyst AIC reflects our ethos to nurture an inclusive ecosystem built on exchange of knowledge, ideas, insights and meaningful collaborations. It also strengthens our vision to interweave high quality research with impactful solutions on the ground”.
“While urban India has seen rapid digitisation of processes and systems across all domains through startups, India’s last mile communities have been left largely unserved. With Catalyst AIC, we aim to provide a holistic support ecosystem for inclusive tech startups, building solutions for the last mile. We believe that with the right support systems in place, India has the capability and capacity to produce the next high performance business model, exclusively serving these vastly untapped, underserved communities.”, said Deepanshu Khandelwal, CEO of Catalyst AIC. He has previously worked with EY in the form of a consultant to state governments on their startup policies. He has worked with startups extensively over the past seven years. Deepanshu is also the founder of digital news media company, Blue Box Media.
“A key component of the Catalyst AIC Incubator is to provide in-depth granular research that helps start-ups. LEAD has extensive experience in understanding how to best cater to the last mile. This knowledge and expertise will be instrumental in providing ground-level insights on the artisan segment. It will enable the creation of tailor-made products for the last-mile, and importantly, those that are women-centric – taking into account their requirements, challenges and what works equally for men and women.” said Sharon Buteau, Executive Director of LEAD at Krea University. Over the past decade, Sharon has been working on understanding how co-creation, collaborative processes, as well using the power of technology and data from the ground up can improve socio-economic outcomes for individuals, households and enterprises. She focuses on bringing the right combination of talent, expertise and stakeholders together to ensure that investments and efforts are perfectly aligned with the desired goals.
The first phase of the Catalyst initiative was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), under the mSTAR Program to increase adoption of digital payments in India. Under a partnership with the Government of Rajasthan, LEAD set up a first of its kind digital payments lab in Jaipur to enable small merchants and low-income consumers move towards a less cash economy.
The Incubator will be formally launched shortly. This will be followed by a call for applications for the first cohort of startups.
IFMR GSB faculty shared insights on AI &Analytics
Prof Amar Saxena, Associate Professor, Marketing at IFMR GSB shared valuable insights at 3AI Pinnacle Spectre 2020, an annual event hosted by the largest AI community in India. As a panellist, Prof Saxena participated in a discussion and shed light on AI & Analytics being one of the most sought out career opportunities by new age professionals and aspirants.
