Background Hum December 2022

The Team's Note

EE is one of the largest departments in IIT Bombay in the terms of the number of active faculty members, students enrolled and ongoing research funding The department has made rapid strides during the last decade in all spheres of education and research

Our undergraduate program has always been known to be one of the best engineering undergraduate programs in the country We now emphasize post-graduate education and research in a significant way. In our department, Masters and Doctoral students outnumber undergraduate students today. Our sponsored research activities have multiplied several folds From 2002 to 2022, there has been a tenfold increase in terms of the sponsored research budget

The department has set up many state-of-the-art research laboratories and centres such as the Center for Excellence in Nanoelectronics, the National Center for Photovoltaic Research and Education, Telecom Center of Excellence We recognize that we have a tremendous role to play in driving our country’s technology roadmap in the Electronics sector

If you are an alumnus of EE reading this, it is time to get in touch with us. Believe me, these are exciting times and we would love to get your support Alumni support has always been a great driving force in the progress of our institute and we value our continued relationship with all alumni

Finally, our department has a long tradition of striving for excellence in whatever we do I hope we will be able to maintain this in the years to come.

Prof. Kishore Chatterjee Head of Department Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Tête-à-Tête withProf.ShiladriChakraborty

RESEARCH IN EV BATTERIES AND CHARGING

INTRODUCTION

Prof. Shiladri works in the area of power electronics and energy conversion.Powerelectronicsisakey enabling technology for a variety of applications like renewable energy systems, transportation electrification, space, data centre, industrialdrivesetc.

Despite developments, wireless charging is stuck in a chicken-andegg problem. Car manufacturers don’t want to build a system of wireless charging that won’t be used, and charging pad providers aren’t willing to offer their solutions if cars aren’t fitted with the capacity to use them.

His broad goal is to conduct fundamental as well as applied, industry-oriented research for building next-gen power electronic converters, which are more efficient, compact,reliableandaffordable.

There are three broad categories of Electric Vehicle technology, namely, power electronics, machines, and batterymanagement.

Let's deep dive into the power electronics part of EVs with Prof. Chakraborty!

The two major power electronic modules used in EVs are inverters and auxiliary power modules. Inverters are used in chargers to convert AC supply to DC voltage for batteries and to convert DC battery voltage to AC voltage for the electric motorsthatdrivethevehicles.

Theelectroniccontrolmodulesinthe car work at low voltages(typically 24V),sothereisaneedtostepdown theDCvoltagefromthebatteryfrom 400V to 24V, which is done by an auxiliary power module(APM). The chargerandauxiliarypowermodules arediscreteandhenceoccupymore space and increase the cost of productionofthevehicles.

Prof. Chakraborty and his team are working on integrating these two modules into a single module. He points out that "though this integration approach leads to economic benefits like cost and space reduction, there are reliability issues." For instance, in the integrationapproach,ifsomepartof thechargercircuitfails,thentheAPM alsostopsworking.

Themajortrendacrosstheworldisto move from 400V batteries to 800V batteries, which would enable us to deliver more power without increasing the cable size(current). The charger circuit, which was converting 230V AC to 400V DC, now needs to boost it to 800V DC, so the power electronics circuits have to be changedcompletely.

Prof. Chakraborty mentions, "The power electronic community is actively working on the challenges posed by these high-voltage batteries" and he is eager to collaborate with students to solve thesechallengingproblems.

He can be reached at shiladri@ee iitb ac in

KNOW YOUR PROFESSOR: AMIT SETHI

Prof. Amit Sethi works in image processing, computer vision, and machine learning For the last few years, he has been working in deep learning and its application to digital pathology to analyse cancer tissue images

We reached out to Prof Amit Sethi to understand his research interests and career journey. Following are some excerpts from the conversation that followed:

Can you walk us through your journey here at IIT Bonmbay?

Before joining IIT Bombay in 2017, I was at IIT Guwahati where I worked with cancer pathology images using image processing and AI AI being the “hot” field it is, I was fortunate to get undergrads as well as post-graduates to come together and brainstorm on the problems that I was working on I already had a collaboration with Tata Memorial and attained two more after coming here. With these, I realized that entities from different domains can come together to build ideas that can lead to the betterment of the people. Since the number of people interested in this field was much larger now, I mused, why not start a new lab here?

What are some of the challenges that you’ve faced?

One of the major roadblocks in this field is the small training data size due to a low patient count. Next, each image is a Gpixel image, each pixel maps to a quarter-micron tissue area so that subnuclear level details can also be seen Detecting these mutations is equivalent to finding an actual needle in a haystack. We then resort to more advanced techniques like weakly supervised learning and domain adaptation techniques to handle such huge images. Data occupation also becomes a massive task as we need good doctors to conclude that the problem is worth solving

There is a dearth of medical research in India, and the number of people who are actually qualified is even lower. There is a fact that I’ve heard that there are more Indian doctors (in the US) per American than we have Indian doctors per Indian. More and more doctors getting engaged in research would lead to the elation of this field.

AI shouldn’t be thought of as a replacement for a doctor. It has very specific capabilities It can take you as far as semi-automation, post that it is the doctor who is its supervisor and has the final say It should be seen more as a force multiplier of doctors. If the workflow is very restrictive, say you are looking at chest X-rays of people belonging to a specific age group, ethnicity etc., then only can it be treated as a “replacement”.

Some of the major challenges of launching AI, particularly in the West, is that if anything goes awry, someone has to be considered liable for it, which is not the case in countries like India. If an AI makes a mistake, then who is to blame? Will the pathologist or radiologist who signed the report be blamed, or the engineer who trained the model be responsible?

Laws that define liability have not been fully developed in the West. In India, such situations are often overlooked, which is both a boon and a bane. It gives more freedom to doctors in making bolder decisions in severe cases without dealing with unnecessary hassles.

Qure.AI is a Mumbai-based company that uses AI for analysing radiological images It belongs to the pool of those few companies that have US FDA for their products Most of their deployments are outside India but not in the West. They have developed AI that can diagnose certain conditions in chest CT scans They have built a very good ecosystem and can be helpful to readers to kindred more with the topic at hand.

How has teaching supported your research?

As a teacher, I try to give more contemporary information about the current happenings in this field to the students. The exchange works both ways; the students keep me updated on any research paper they’ve stumbled upon or something new they’ve unearthed.

Can AI be thought of as a replacement for doctors in the near future?

What are some of the significant challenges in deploying AI in industries such as healthcare?

Can you suggest any case studies so that readers can relate more to the topic?

Features With Interviews

From the Horse's Mouth!

Diverse Career Diverse Career Opportunities for Opportunities for Electrical Engineers Electrical Engineers

Building our careers is the most important goal for us during college life. The choices we make in college will stay with us a long way. While some might choose to opt for higher studies, the majority are focused on securing a job in a company which they feel offers them the best possible.

Let us try to understand the distinction between core and non-core opportunities. The areas covered under any particular branch of engineering, which, in our case, is electrical engineering, lie under core engineering. Applying everything that we study as a part of our curriculum (and beyond, but mostly limited to our branch) to practice, to industry, comes under core engineering.

The non-core field involves knowledge much beyond what we acquire through the courses in our core branch and requires us to learn and explore various fields independently. With respect to electrical engineering, some non-core fields include software development, data science, quantitative trading, consulting, and product management.

While taking admission to college, most students are unaware of where their interests lie and tend to develop them with experience and time. This happens after interacting with more people and working on various projects and internships during the initial years of college life.

Sometimes we are confused as to what would be best for us. Students choose the way they do based on several different factors. Some observe and try to follow their peer group. Some of them have all their goals decided early on. While some are still contemplating. In the end, we learn from experience, majorly from ours but often from that of others. And, this is the kind of perspective we wish to convey to you in this feature interview of students and professionals.

Student Perspective

Experience matters. And what's better than hearing it from our very own seniors, who have gone through it all and are eager to share their stories with us. We have interviewed a few of them who have interned in the fields of core and non core engineering. Let us see what they have to say.

Interning in Core Industry

Darin Jeff

Why did you choose the core field and which sector/domain are you planning to focus on?

Honestly, I chose core simply because I didn't want to find myself doing something I hadn't invested any time in while letting the things I had invested my time in over the last few years go to waste. I'd also taken a liking to the fields of signal processing and coding theory and wanted to get a flavor of what working in an industry job in these fields felt like.

What was your strategy to prepare for the tests and interviews?

Since Texas Instruments is one of the few companies that offers an internship under a 'signal processing' profile, I had more or less decided to focus my prep time towards securing this internship. I had talked to some seniors who had been selected in this profile to get an idea of what the test and interview pattern would be. The test and interview focused mainly on the basic concepts. Being comfortable with the fundamentals should be enough to solve the technical questions. he interviews also ask a brain-teaser to test the critical thinking of the candidates. I had gone through a few similar riddles while preparing for the interview.

How was your internship experience?

I really enjoyed the internship at Texas Instruments. I had been selected to intern with the radar team at Texas Instruments. The work was more theoretical and involved implementing signal-processing algorithms from recent papers to process the data obtained by the radar ADC. Despite having an online internship, my mentor was kind enough to arrange for a one-day visit to the campus, where I got to see the office and meet other members of the radar team. The work atmosphere there was pleasant and the place was nice.

Darin Jeff, B.Tech, Electrical Engineering

Software Engineer Malhar Kulkarni

Fortunately, I was selected pretty early on during the internship season, so I wasn't under a lot of academic pressure. The few backlogs I did have, I was able to clear them out pretty smoothly after my final interviews.

My preparation for the tests and interviews mainly consisted of daily practice rather than excessive studies at the last minute. I'd already completed a few courses (MOOCs and CS213) related to DSA, so during the summers before the internship season, I focused on practicing coding questions on Leetcode, InterviewBit and Hackerrank. Other than that, I was also revising Analog, Digital and Signal Processing to prepare for the core company interviews. I made sure all my prep was dispersed throughout the summers, rather than keeping everything for after the start of the semester.

Who or what inspired you to go for non-core? When did you become aware of your true interests?

Nothing in particular, really. Honestly, I was initially targeting core companies such as Texas Instruments and Qualcomm for my third-year internship. However, to keep a few more options in hand, I decided to seek internships in IT/Software as well.

I chose this just because I didn't really have any prior experience in fields like Consult and Finance. I had previously completed an internship in Data Science and I am also pursuing a minor in Computer Science; so naturally, Software seemed like the best choice to me, in non-core. As for my true interests, I think gaining actual work experience through my internship at Sprinklr was the best motivation to go into IT/Software (in fact, I was having cold feet about this internship even a day before it began, but then it went by pretty smoothly)

Malhar Kulkarni, DD Electrical Engineering

How did you prepare for tests and interviews along with core acads?

My internship experience was great! I was actually petrified initially when I was assigned the role of a Front-end Development Intern. I had a little experience in front-end web dev which included HTML/CSS and some basic Javascript. However, my assigned mentors were really friendly and supportive, even though I was pretty much a beginner. They gave me ample time to learn JavaScript properly and helped me out a lot with my doubts. The end result was a pretty satisfactory project which even received appreciation from Sprinklr's Senior VP. Overall, I had an incredibly flexible working schedule, a gradual learning curve and highly supportive mentors.

Finance Kunal Chhabra

I'm pretty happy with my choice of joining Sprinklr for my internship. I’ve had a great experience in this field till date. The domain of Software development has many advantages for one's career, is what I believe. A flexible work schedule, great pay and massive demand in the coming future are some of the perks. The only downside I personally find is just that my work won't be much relevant to the core curriculum, which is why I'm still keeping core Elec as a viable career option, but other than that, software is definitely the way to go, at least for me.

I had an interest in fast calculations and computations since my childhood, and after knowing how the world of finance involved a blend of such calculations and customizable interest bearing assets through a variety of financial instruments, I decided to explore this field during my summer internship.

Kunal Chhabra, DD, Electrical Engineering

I was a Corporate Sales intern in Fixed Income Division. So my typical work day would be 7:30 am-3:30 pm.

How satisfied are you with your choice?

Why did you decide to take up consult/finance as a career option?

How was your internship experience at Sprinklr?

What was your role in the company? How was your typical day in the company?

I had my manager in Singapore.

Learning corporate finance in depth and producing some overall analysis of various firms’ financial statements in a compact manner which can be useful for the firm to offer customized financial instruments to the firms to hedge their risks.

Why do you think they hire engineers for these non-tech roles? What is the main skill set they look for?

I think such roles demand a great learning curve for finance, responsibility, quick calculations and pitching skills which engineers, especially IITians learn through their PORs and aptitude tests which they are exposed to before entering college.

The main skills they look for are your pace of learning, teamwork, confidence and a sense of responsibility to help the firm deliver its best offerings to the clients and maintain long-term relationships.

Conclusion

When the placement/internship season starts, most of us face the dilemma of whether to go for core or non-core. The dilemma grows further with core profiles offering lower pay than some of the noncore roles. Often, we choose a job based on salary and peer pressure. So, what is right and what is wrong?

The experiences of various people have shown us that there is no definition of right or wrong when choosing a job.

There is a famous quote by Steve Jobs: "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards". What matters is giving our best in whatever we do and being mentally tough and courageous enough to switch careers when we end up in a place we do not belong.

Though the students we have interviewed had taken up conventional jobs in a corporate background, there are many untold stories of people taking up unconventional roles. We have covered one such experience of one of our Alumni, a painter, in a following interview, and we hope to take up many more such experiences in our next edition!

APPLYING FOR RESEARCH INTERNSHIPS

THE DREAD OF APPING

Univ internships…These are perhaps one of the most sought-after internships by students. And why not? With the opportunity to perform cutting-edge research with some of the best people in the domain and get international exposure, research internships have their own allure.

With this come a plethora of questions – What do I do? How do I get in? Is research for me?

It becomes staggeringly tricky to navigate without help. In this feature, we provide a comprehensive guide to research internships in prestigious universities abroad and avoid ending up in the maze of the corporate world. We discuss the opportunities of pursuing research despite coming from a “tech” institution.

The Many Ways of Applying

If you want to apply for an univ internship, there are many ways of going about it:

Placements and Training (PT) Cell:

Research internships that come through PT Cell are easy to apply to. You sign the IAF with the résumé you spent hours perfecting. Some universities might require you to write a Statement of Purpose (SOP), but that’s all it takes. After this, you wait for the interview shortlist to be announced and pray your résumé catches the professor’s eye.

In case this happens, you get shortlisted for an interview. The interview, however, is not like a traditional interview. The interview usually consists of discussions with the professor on the topics they have in mind and just getting to know you better as a person. This might entail conversations about your technical background, hobbies, interests, and future plans.

You’re all set if the interview goes well and the professor likes you! Off to a fantastic place for an internship it is, then!

Research Programs: Applying for an internship through a research program is much more tedious.

Your PT Cell résumé version is useless here; you require a proper CV. In a CV, you would describe your projects and their outcomes in greater detail without worrying about “traditional” résumé norms. In addition, most (read all) programs require you to submit an SOP and a (few) Letters of Recommendation (LoRs). LoRs can make or break your chance of landing an excellent research internship. A glowing recommendation letter highlighting your impressive work will boost your chances of selection. So reach out to the professors that you know well to ask them to write you a recommendation letter! And not just any person would do: only profs that know you well would be able to write a genuine LoR.

Next step — select projects: Every program you apply to will ask you to submit a preference order for a couple of projects (the exact number is program-dependent) among the list of projects offered.

A word of advice: be very, very specific. There will be many exciting and coollooking projects out there, but be sure to dive deep into all the projects you’re considering before finalizing the list. You do not want to end up in a project that looks cool but bores you entirely once you start working on it, so be sure to select only those that align with your interests and future goals!

The Application Process

Applying Externally

A lot of students in the past have done great internships in prestigious universities via apping, which don’t offer research internship programs for international students.

Apping externally gives you much more freedom in terms of project and professor selection while being much less restrictive. Research programs have certain bars on which students can apply. On the other hand, anyone can do apping.

The process is simple enough; it gets repeated until it becomes pure pain. The first step involves shortlisting universities and professors to mail to. Post this begins the mailing process.

Timelines and Process: For a summer intern, it is advisable to start drafting and sending emails in October of the previous year itself to have sufficient time for the rest of the procedure. Writing emails comprises about 90% of the entire apping process: write a mail, attach your CV (Beware: attaching a PDF directly has a high chance of landing in the professor’s spam mail! Attach a link instead!).

Follow up regularly, and more often than not — get rejected. Professors — if they do end up reading your email and replying to it — will take a LONG time to get back to you (sometimes even more than a month!).

Once you do get a positive reply, the process lightens up. Usually, a small informal interview is conducted to get to know you better, finalize a topic and develop a better understanding of the project, highlight some of the deliverables, etc.

After this, the process is fairly administrative. All you have to do is work out the nitty-gritty logistics for travel and lodging. The professors are accommodating when it comes to this, and may fund your expenses (up to a specific limit, of course).

Apping, as this is more popularly called, is perhaps the most excruciating way to get a research internship. However, the rewards are high.

EV Research showcased by students from Power Electronics Lab for alumni (above) during the Innovation Exhibition on 9th November 2022.

Alumni interacting with students at EE Nanofabrication Lab stall (above) and with an EE start up incubated in the campus, SoilSens (left) at the Innovation Exhibition on 9th November 2022.

Alumni interacting with Post Graduate students at EE P Quest Lab stall (above) during Innovation Exhibition on 9th November 2022.

Prof. Preeti Rao interacting with Research Assistant at Wadhwani Electronics Lab (top).

Team at Wadhwani Electronics Lab showcasing latest work (above)

Alumni interacting with students at EE stall for National Centre for Photovoltaic Research and Education (above, right) during Innovation Exhibition on 9th November 2022.

Thanks Alumni for Joining us on your Golden Jubilee!

Rabiz Foda - Very engaging and look forward to support this initiative!

Ashwin Shah - Excellent faculty, very informative,helpful stuff. Would like to be mentor!

Geeta Govindrajan - This brings back memories, hope it will improve IIT & industry relations (on Innovation Exhibition)

Mr. Anil Patil ('72) has taken up the responsibility to interact with EE ACE and the department for further discussion! (left)

Alumni interacting with faculty in GG Conference Hall, EE (below)

Teachers Day

Departmental Teachers' Day and the Traditional Day were organised by EESA on 30th September 2022. Famed author of 'Concepts of Physics', Padma Shri awardee Prof. HC Verma was the chief guest for the event. In this article, Shreyas Nadkarni, a 4th-year dual degree student, talks about his experience and learning from the event.

We had Prof. HC Verma, author of the Physics bestseller "Concepts of Physics", interacting with us at the teachers' day celebration. It was a great occasion to witness.

Prof. Verma shared many insights into teaching and learning from his experiences. His focus was on the methods of teaching which enable students to learn things better. With some excellent examples, he instructed how a student's imagination and creativity should be used constructively by the teacher and how teachers can motivate students towards learning.

He also shared his experiences while writing the book, what he aimed to do and how the book became a hit and remains to be one even after 30 years with the JEE examination pattern changing multiple times. Having spent so many hours with the book during JEE preparation, all of us have a personal bond with the book, and learning about its journey from Prof. HCV himself was an enthralling experience.

A big thank you to HC Verma Sir for agreeing to enlighten us with his wisdom and to EESA and the Department for organising this event.

When we enter campus in the freshie year, the famous quote by our JEE teachers, “Life is set after getting into IIT,” echoes in our minds. We dream of becoming an allrounder, from sports to culturals.

A few weeks later, we realize we are doing more rounds around the LHC than anything else As the months pass, quizzes and assignments become the new normal. Then we try to explore some items on our bucket lists

We try all sorts of things, from sports to dancing to stand-up to painting (We have some fantastic artwork in the informal section by our batchmates, do check them out! ).

Mr Vinay Sane was one such freshie in 1981 who joined the B.Tech program and found himself greatly interested in microelectronics. He was instrumental in setting up the microelectronics laboratory in our department Though many students from Mr. Sane’s time went to the US for higher studies, he decided to do his M Tech from IITB due to his association with the lab.

He had the urge to become a painter from his college days, but again, like most of us, he did not have the resources to venture into an unconventional career right out of college. He worked in the laboratory for seven years before moving to Singapore as a research engineer in a microelectronics company.

After working in Singapore for 12 years, he felt the need to switch careers and do something he really wanted. His children were young and were getting used to the Singaporean culture. Since he was leaving his job, he was not permitted to stay in Singapore, so he shifted his family to Pune and started his new journey. It was a tough decision for him, but he did it

Making a hobby into a full-time career is not an easy thing. Life was quite different 18 years ago when he decided to take up painting as a career. There were no online courses to learn things quickly; he had to approach various people across Mumbai and wait long hours to meet them, but his desire to become a painter kept him going.

His passion endured, one thing led to another and he received help from a senior artist in Pune and started to paint. He says, “Painting is just 5% of the work; the central part is marketing the painting.”

As with any profession, being good at it is but one part of the story. Being able to talk about your work, bring it to others’ attention and to build lasting relationships, is also important. During the initial years, his paintings got minimal traction due to lack of experience in this area. Here was the next part of the challenge – how to be entrepreneurial in one’s artistic endeavours!

On 3rd August 2022, Mr. Sane visited the department with two of his paintings – Swimming Towards Light and Dawn.

Mr. Sane explained how he likes to work with abstract concepts – like hunger or bliss – and try to express meaning through colours.

Rizwan Koita on the Future ofDigitalHealthcare

Earlier this year, we met Mr Rizwan Koita to discuss the length, breadth and width of the healthcare industry and how it is being transformed using an advanced implementation of Artificial Intelligence in medical diagnosis, disease prevention and overall bolstering of the healthcare system

To present context on our guest, Mr Koita is an IIT Bombay alumnus of the ‘92 batch of the Department of Electrical Engineering. After graduation, he pursued his master's at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science After a brief stint as a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Co., he eventually established CitiusTech, a leading provider of specialised Healthcare technology solutions and services. His philanthropic ventures help NGOs across via the Koita Foundation He is also the lead sponsor for the recently opened Koita Centre of Digital Health at IIT Bombay

In a conversation that traversed topics from the boom in digital healthcare, the future of the field and the impact of this transformation, we present a brief excerpt of the meeting Various case studies and analogies have been collated and presented to aid the understanding of the topic

When asked for comment on the transformation of the healthcare industries, Mr Koita directed us to the expenditure on healthcare by the government of the United States, which picked up pace around the post-2008 financial crisis Since then, the spending patterns have grown to about 10-15% of the GDP for advanced economies while averaging around 5-10% in developing economies. In more recent times, this growth has also been reflected in the seed-funding patterns where health tech firms attracted the most funding across categories leaving red-hot sectors such as fintech behind in June 2022

Now that we have established the Now that we have established the monetary significance of employing significance of more than 5 million people in India, we more 5 in we delve deeper to understand the industry, delve deeper to understand the industry, its objectives, recent advancements, its objectives, recent advancements, roadblocks, and the way forward roadblocks, forward. According to Mr Koita, the digital Mr. Koita, healthcare industry is going through a healthcare industry is going through a transformational phase right now, just like transformational phase right now, just like the internet did in the 2000s. The sector in is still sowing its seeds and expects to is sowing its reap its outputs in the next 15-20 years reap its outputs in the next 15-20 years

To put this in perspective, for an To put this in perspective, for an average family, one of the most average one of the most recurring reasons for bankruptcies is reasons bankruptcies due to the unaffordability of the due to the the healthcare system What digital system. healthcare does is aim at reducing reducing costs to increase affordability and costs to increase affordability and improve overall access to healthcare improve overall access to healthcare services while introducing services while introducing improvements in technology. in technology

How this is being implemented can be How this is being implemented can be understood aptly with an example A example. cardiologist goes through ECG goes ECG waveforms to detect anomalies in the waveforms to detect anomalies the signal waveform to find a probable signal waveform to find a probable diagnosis This task can be outsourced to diagnosis. a machine-learning model trained over a these waveforms to understand these these waveforms to understand these patterns and make relevant patterns and make relevant recommendations. Astounding as it sounds, algorithms have already started providing better insights in some cases providing better insights in some cases than doctors in diseases such as breast than doctors in diseases such as breast cancer. The core concept here is pattern concept pattern matching which a doctor used to perform based on his medical expertise based on his medical expertise being assisted with Artificial Intelligence. being assisted with Artificial Intelligence Besides helping with better diagnosis, these steps help significantly reduce the significantly strain on the already overburdened strain on the already overburdened medical personnel, both in terms of time medical personnel, both in terms of time and cost. In an article by NHWA, the and cost In an article by NHWA, the doctors to patients ratio was estimated patients ratio to be 8 8 doctors for every 10,000 to be 8.8 doctors every 10,000 individuals in India. individuals in India

But is the road as easy as it seems? Well no! These advanced algorithms need proper training, which demands welllabelled datasets. Acquiring such datasets is a painstaking process since it requires uniformity in methods of data collection, labelling and storage techniques. This process is timeconsuming, and active efforts are needed to bridge the gap between researchers and the available resources. The gestation period of such data collection measures, from putting in measuring instruments to getting an actionable dataset, can go up to 1 year. Another crucial aspect is the need for more awareness regarding opportunities in the field among the general populace. It’s an untapped field that doesn’t enjoy the privilege of attracting proportionate young talent required to push the boundaries of the sector.

An effective effort in this direction has been taken by the Indian government as well in terms of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission that looks at developing the infrastructure required for digital health in India by bridging the gap between various stakeholders. A few broad areas covered here include paperless record-keeping, health data analytics, medical research and enterprise-class health application systems.

Mr Koita outlines the objective as reaching out to the wider population first instead of investing resources to connect every remote segment initially and highlights a few business models that can be adopted into the healthcare industry to further its progress. He relates how a restaurant discovery system implemented by firms such as Zomato and Swiggy based on feedback and cost can be extended to hospitals for better information transparency and dissemination. Another example is ticketing portals such as BookMyShow, which instantly show the number of seats available at any event. Similarly, access to healthcare can be improved if information such as hospital bed availability can be centralised to avoid the hassle of searching for a healthcare provider.

Lastly, before wrapping up, Mr Koita talked about the Koita Centre of Digital Health, which provides collaboratory opportunities between hospitals, students, and researchers here at IIT Bombay while also offering internship opportunities and courses to help students better understand the field. He points out that we [the world] don’t need us [the students] to build more credit card fraud detection models but invest our time and skills in solving a real-life healthcare problem that probably very few have ever taken up.

Wellness Wellness in the in the Moment Moment

The first article in our Wellness series deliberated shifting the power to unnoticed individual choices – like waking up and going to sleep. The second one discussed the importance of the substantial weight of community and relationships in the department. In this article, I’ll talk about ways of opening space for wellness during the day as we negotiate the dance of personal ambitions and external pressures of campus life.

Weighty Questions

Why should we be having extensive conversations on well-being and wellness in an institute of technology, which concerns itself largely with education, innovation, and research? Can we have any of these without paying attention to the health and wellness of the individuals that make up the institute? Where then does the responsibility for well-being lie? Does it lie with the individual? Or is it the institute’s or government’s job to ensure hygiene, cleanliness, order, and stability?

What is wellness?

Wellness is an “active pursuit of activities, choices, and lifestyles that lead to a state” as per The Global Wellness Institute, “of holistic wellbeing” – of feeling content and satisfied in the present moment

Our individual well-being can be actively shaped through mindfully navigating tensions between everyday choices and everyday demands

Interconnections are Key to Wellness Development

Consider the world as a giant set of Matryoshka nesting dolls. In that enormous nesting-doll world, you are here – ensconced within the family, within an educational system, within a social, and economic system.

Similarly, in you, there is a nesting of several biochemical systems to sustain one being i.e. you. Increasing our awareness of the interconnections between several factors of living leads to observing our experiences as part of the whole drama of life

Asking questions to tease out these interconnections helps. For example, what individual ailments can an individual have that show up at a larger scale in the world i e Covid/Vit D/Thyroid/Diabetes/Heart disease? And consequently, how do the current world problems show up in our day-to-day life, how are they a part of us i.e. air pollution, plastics, climate change, Covid, etc.?

Harmony and stability are the results of a balance and integration of several forces working together. But where do we stand individually with respect to those forces and how do we interact with them for enhancing well-being?

Connecting the individual to larger forces not only reveals the immense shaping power these forces have, it also encourages a measured comprehension of the control individuals have over global issues.

Whenitcomestowellness,thequestionto ask is: How much value do you place on everyday actions. Have you valued sleeping deeply, having an appetite for nutritious food and a thirst for plain, simple water – especially in the midst of exams or placement season. Have you been paying attention to all the systems under your power? For example, your body’s fitness requires attention. Choosing of nutritious food, exercise and good sleep equips you with the right heft to handle external pressures better. Did you know that your body’s weight, energy levels, strength and flexibility – all need to be workeduponforwellness?

Global Health Embodied in One –What Is Your Weight?

Weight gain and weight loss and watching one’s weight – all focus on the body’s weight as it shows on the weighing scale. But is bodyweight only that? In the context of overall wellness, the number on the weighing scale tells only one-sixth of thefullstory.

Your weight also comprises of emotional baggage, mental load, and cumulative physical stress endured upto the present moment. Add to that the weight of social expectations, the pressure of studies, tensions of friends, relationships and familialbeliefsaboutus.

When we have not paid attention to all aspects of ourselves, when we don’t know how to pull our own weight, we tend to throw our weight around – which means we expect from others what we essentially need to do for ourselves. This happen when there is a disconnect between one area of our lives with another, or with largerforcesactinginNature.

To reconnect then and develop well-being, ithelpstoreflectonourbody.

Is your body one thing or a combination of several systems working together? Can it be both – many (working together) as one - at the same time? How do we understanditssilentlanguage–asasetof systems or as one being or both? How do wecommunicatewithit?

Through awareness of the body as both –one being i.e. you – and many systems that work together to keep you together (all puns intended), the silent dance between individual choice and social pressures becomes an empowering space to start getting a handle on common individual challenges – like lack of time for sunning yourself in case of a Vit. D deficiency.

“We only live once, Snoopy.

Wrong! we only die once. We live every day!"

–

Charlie Brown

Choosing Wellness in the Moment

"You only live once, but if you do it right, onceisenough."–MaeWest

Wellness is the conscious pursuit of ways to get to the end of life without being completely used up by it. When you are here, on campus, choose to utilize what the educational system has to offer. That is the agency you have. The world is not perfect, neither are the people in it, so forgiveness and kindness goes a long way towardskeepingwell-beingintact.

“Wellness, I came to realize, will not happen by accident. It must be a daily practice, especially for those of us who are more susceptible to the oppressiveness of the world,” says New York Times’ culture writer Jenna Wortham.

The non-monetary assets – fitness, calmness, and love – where and how do we learn them? We learn them every day in micro-actions. Choosing a glass of lemonade over a can of coke, choosing to stop working to catch up on sleep, choosing to stand up to peer pressures or choosing to do only one thing at a time when the beast of several to-do's breaths downournecks.

Each person’s individual human body expresses itself without words at each moment – through a sense of pressure, pain, a sense of weight, change of breath and temperature. It expresses itself in raised heartbeats, higher levels of sugar, lower levels of Vitamin D or hyper/hypo thyroidism or its systems remain in equilibrium. Catching those moments, being mindful of them gives you power to choose what is right for your own health and the health of your surrounding environment.

Have you read your body lately? Does stress settle in your feet, your shoulders, head? Your arms, or back or legs? The body often offers clues to problems or challenges yet to come and presents you with the keys to understand that weight onyourchest.

“The more you understand yourself, the more silence there is, the healthier you are.”–MaximeLagacé

THE TRANSITION FROM ONLINE CHATURS TO OFFLINE RANCHOS

-Shiv Bharuka and Rishab Rao -Shiv Bharuka and Rishab Rao

Hence the most hectic branch made its way into JOSAA and later we realized it was the decision that had made our life most lively

After almost two years of being inside our house under the JEE mood, we first met the Elec junta on the WhatsApp group, where there was so much happening that we spent hours reading chats as we all were coming out from the curtain of this rat race

Soon it led to meets with themes like singing, gaming, or jamming with some music, where we would later clip recordings of a batchmate dancing and send them as WA stickers without consent.

Life was chill and fun, with daily meets, games...Then came EE113 Well, that's for you to experience; Hopefully, it won't get to the part where the HOD had to intervene regarding the entire batches marks (sneak peek, class average was 0 75/15)

Skipping the RR (which you'll get to see a lot in-person), let us get back to the meets ;)

Another day, around 40 of us joined a gmeet and prank called a friend of ours by setting up his matrimonial with a name of a girl we made up, but it turns out we had a classmate with the same name

For Valentine's day, to intensify the bonding in our batch <wink><wink>, we had a meeting with red as the theme, and the boys joined with a rose in their hand to try their luck. It turned out to be an all-boys meet, where we ended up using our pickup lines on each other.

The first semester ended, and we wanted to take our EElationship to the next stage and thus had our first offline meeting. It was time to get some action.

"Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life."

-Natalie Babbitt

Having the desire to meet our friends (including her) and see the beauty of the campus (including her), IIT Bombay EEden(that's what we called our batch) meet-up was initiated

It turned out to be trickier than we expected, as the gate passes (including her) were hard to get due to the prevalent situations

We tried for ages to get the gate pass, sending emails daily to coordinate the same. Finally, we decided to mail Prof Big B, and within an hour, Big B replied, "Gate pass isn't an issue; where would you be staying"

Thus, we met IITians, our batchmates, for the first time and played Holi shirtless on campus, making the mission: ghumi ghumi a success.

Our bond grew stronger during such an era, for we soon had 1-1 meets with each other, spanning up to eight hours in one go!

Two months later, we received a mail with the subject "coming to campus."

A month later, we found ourselves hiding in hostel rooms we didn't know who it belonged to, from the guards at 2 AM, who came to our floor due to the somewhat tribal dance we were doing around a loudspeaker

On the brighter side, we didn't get caught, unlike our best friend hiding under a girl's bed the same night.

It would be tempting to say the second semester would be an improvement, as we would learn what not to do from the first sem:

Alas, guess old habits die hard.

As it turned out, both of our CPIs dropped by 1.5 units.

In our defence, it's not about making a mark It's about leaving a dent.

It was the end of the first year, an opening to many possibilities.

After chanting Agla Sem Phodege, we went on a day's trip to Imagicaa, or EEmagicaa as we called it, where a hundred of us got together to get wet ;)

We also cancelled crib sessions held by profs on that day just for the trip. Being Academic Coordinators does have its perks.

With our first year winding up, we did feel blissful about the entire JEE journey and the what-we-thought-were-sacrifices, for it was a Delayed Gratification as we got back what we gave up back then, and much more (including her).

EE Creatives

Aakanksha Jain

A 3rd year Dual Degree student in EE who enjoys art, designing, bharatanatyam, basketball and dramatics

Her academic interests include signal processing and communication systems

Siva Prabhakar

A 2nd year PhD student in the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay His research interest lies in the field of Power Electronics Apart from research, he does pencil sketching, cartooning and caricaturing He believes in the power of art to soothe the mind

Pradnya Kumbhare

A B Tech 2nd year student in EE She loves sketching and making Mandala artworks She believes that art is not what you see but what you make others see! She has interests in Signal Processing, finance and loves to listen to music

Sriniketan Joshi

A B Tech 2nd year student in EE He loves to paint and is enthusiastic to master portrait sketching He also enjoys skating, playing football and taking part in healthy discussions with anyone

She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay Her research interests include quantum sensing, nano-photonics, precision metrology, and quantum computation with solid state color defects She is a recipient of the DSTINSPIRE faculty fellowship In her spare time, she enjoys painting and playing badminton

Siva Prabhakar

A 2nd year PhD student in the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay His research interest lies in the field of Power Electronics Apart from research, he does pencil sketching, cartooning and caricaturing He believes in the power of art to soothe the mind

He is an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay and faculty-in-charge of Wadhwani Electronics Lab (WEL) at IIT Bombay His current research interests include MEMS and photonics, high resolution and low cost physical and biosensors, and high speed instrumentation and embedded systems for sensing applications, most notably for structural health monitoring He enjoys sketching digitally, on iPad His app of choice is Autodesk Sketchbook

Prof. Kasturi Saha

Prof. Siddharth Tallur

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