IIT students brief the media on Techniche 2004 on Sunday. Picture by Eastern Projections

Aug. 29: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati, has set up a date with global experts to share ideas on low-cost wireless applications being developed by it to boost rural-connectivity.

Students and faculty members will be sharing ideas through online videoconferencing sessions with researchers gathered at freifunk.net summer convention in Djursland, Denmark, on September 5.

The videoconferencing is part of the three-day sixth edition of Techniche, the annual technical festival of the IIT, which gets under way on September 3. Funded by the Union ministry of human resource development, the project is being handled by MTech students of the institute.

The Djursland project is one of Europe’s leading wireless community networks on developing low-cost wireless applications for rural networking.

Addressing the media today, convener of Techniche 2004, Sumit Suman, said the videoconferencing is being co-ordinated by Arun Mehta of radiophony.com in Denmark and Vickram Crishna, chief executive officer of the company, in Guwahati. Mehta is famous for making software for physicist Stephen Hawking.

The main aim of the company is to make available wireless infrastructure through which rural people can gain effortless access to the Internet, using everyday tools such as telephones and radios.

“Future collaborations will be planned and expertise will be shared with experts globally,” Suman said.

“In the process, the students will also learn how to make proposals that can attract funding, get hands-on experience with the latest technology, and appreciate the power of the Internet in making such projects possible,” he said.

Dwelling on the festival, Suman said it would provide a unique and common platform for the students of the region and encourage them to not only reveal their talents but to match them with students from all parts of the nation in a series of thought-provoking contests and mind-stimulating environment.

“The three-day festival also grants students with a golden opportunity to receive inspiration and insights from pioneering scientists, technocrats and visionaries of the nation,” he added.

Another main attraction of the festival, “Wizard of Biz”, will chalk out a blueprint for industrialisation of Assam.

There will also be a futuristic design contest in which students will be asked to project the world of future.

There will be an event, “Deep Purple”, in which participants will be required to design a device that can float and sink whenever required.

For the schoolchildren, there will be a technical talent search contest called “Technothlon”.