A three-day technology feast

MUMBAI, INDIA: Come January 25 and IIT Bombay will witness a confluence of students, academia and technocrats for the three-day long Techfest 2008.

There will be competitions, lecture series, workshops and exhibitions. A talk on the history of Wikipedia will be delivered by Wiki founder Jimmy Wales.

Speakers include Robert Kahn (Father of Internet), Blaise Aguera y Arcas (Architect, Microsoft Live Labs), Prof. Henry Schaefer (Director, Centre for Computational Chemistry, Univ. of Georgia), Dr. Dinesh Keskar (Vice President, Boeing) and Prof. Slyvester James Gates, Jr. (Director, Centre of String and Particle Theory, Univ. of Maryland).

There will be interactive lectures on topics like nanotechnology and bio-medical engineering. A panel debate on Free Software, Open Source Software and Proprietary Software will be held touching on the differences between the various forms of software, collaborative development of software and financial structure of Open Source Software.

The panel includes Jon ‘maddog’ Hall (Executive Director of Linux International), Atul Chitnis (Founder of FOSS.IN), and Venkatesh Hariharan (Head of Open Source Affairs, Red Hat, India).

As part of showcasing the recent breakthroughs in science and technology, Technofest will exhibit eco-friendly colour changing paints, a study on spinning objects that defy the laws of physics and an interactive calculator in the form of a classroom whiteboard amongst others.

The exhibits will range from anti-malarial drugs to wireless communication for agriculture to the most advanced robotic hand.

International competitions namely Full Throttle: Grand Prix, Micromouse, Pixel and Blitzkrieg will be held with a total prize money of US$ 3500.

A section of competitions called Life 2.0 is devoted to technologies promising a ‘better life’ to the future generations.

Exciting events like Junkyard Wars, Jack-of-All-Trades, aero-modeling show, SciTech and BarCamp will also be held.

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