During the afternoon session of Day Two, Prof. Ada E Yonath, Nobel Laureate who was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry spoke on the topic - “From Eco-problems to Eco- Friendly antibiotics”. She said that the ribosomes are universal. They function in a very similar way in all cells regardless of their source and hardly make mistakes. Most of the ribosomal antibiotics are extensions of small organic molecules that cannot be digested by eukaryotes and non-degradable in the environment. Therefore, they may penetrate into agricultural irrigation systems; enter human system and hence spreading antibiotic resistance.

Dr. T. G. Sitharam, Chairman, AICTE, South West Regional Office spoke on “Sustainable Strategies for Water Resource Development using Rain Water”. He explained about replenishing ground water, river rejuvenation and coastal reservoir. He said that water storage is essential for irrigation, drinking water supply and hydropower to provide a buffer for flood management. He also spoke about the construction of an underground dam, India’s traditional water harvesting structures, coastal fresh water reservoir, various possible schemes for sea based/coastal reservoirs, Sea Based Reservoir Vs Land Based Reservoir, the Gulf of Khambhat Development project in Gujarat and advantages of coastal reservoir.

Dr. K. Chidananda Gowda, former Vice-Chancellor of Kuvempu University delivered a talk on “Disruptive Technologies”. Disruptive technology displaces an established technology and shakes up the industry or a ground. It involves breaking product that creates technology. It alters the way in which a business operates. “Innovator’s Dilemma” shares a brief explanation of disruptive technology. He highlighted that Clayton Christensen first introduced the concept of disruptive technology. Some of the common disruptive technologies are PC displaced typewriters; email replaced the way we used to communicate using letters. Smartphone’s replaced cell phones and PDA’s. We are currently in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The First Industrial revolution used water and steam power to mechanize products. The Second Industrial revolution used electric power for mass production while the Third Industrial revolution evolved around digital revolution. The Fourth Industrial revolution involves fusion of technologies, blurring lines between physical, digital and biological spheres. It has been evolving exponentially rather than linearly. He emphasised that Clayton contrasted disruptive innovation with sustaining innovation which simply improves existing products. Mckinsey’s 12 disruptive technologies changing the world were discussed during the session.

Mr. M V Subramanian, Co-Founder & Managing Director of Future Focus Infotech Pvt. Ltd. (FFI) and Mr. Sundaram Moorthy, the CEO of Caliper Engineering & Lab Pvt Ltd, Sahyadri Campus spoke on “Industry 4.0 with respect to Mechanical Engineering”. They spoke about Bot technology, enlightened students with information of coding, programming, importance of various engineering fields in today’s scenario i.e. interdisciplinary approach etc. Students were motivated to take programming as a hobby rather than syllabus, to have hands on experience rather than theoretical study. They also briefed about the several opportunities provided at Sahyadri to students and stimulated them to grab these opportunities with positive attitude. Finally, the session was concluded with the quote - “Watch around and what happening approach?” which helps students to achieve their goals in best possible way.

Mr. Hisashi Yamasaki San I, the Director of OTC Daihen India Pvt Ltd, Gurgaon, Mr. Kapil Dev Sharma, the Manager, technical support department of OTC Daihen India Pvt Ltd, Gurgaon and Mr. Kiran Thamankar (Deputy GM Sales Department), presently working with Japanese Welding & Robotic Multinational M/S OTC Daihen India Pvt Ltd, Gurgaon delivered a talk on “Trends on Welding Automation and Future for Welding automation in India”. They spoke about man power challenges in India and the fields these challenges can be dealt with like requirement of skilled personnel, financial assistance, return justification to the investment on the technology and so on. They enlightened the gathering on the different trends in automation and its future in Indian market. They touched upon the various welding technologies currently used in India and how it can be efficiently replaced by Robotic welding such as in thermit welding, arc welding etc. Finally, they briefed about their company right from its incubation in 1919 to its current status in global market.

Dr. Amar Kumar Pandey, Additional Director General of Police at Government of Karnataka, Bengaluru spoke on “Managing enterprise complexities” with specific reference to “Refugees right to return and reintegration – A comparative analysis of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Sierra Leona”. He has briefed about refugees rights to return and reintegration. He explained about the structure of solving complex problems by formulating strategies and perspective planning. He also described about the ontology of architecture of return. He referred to the 15 stages of return namely peace agreement, cessation of wars, demilitarization, conduct of election and so on.

Mr. H V Dinesh Prasad, Founder Chairman & Principal, Noble School of Business, Bengaluru spoke on “Business Analytics”. He started his session by describing data analysis and various data measurement scales. He emphasized on the relevance of data driven decision making process using a live example. He went about discussing the uses and application of data analytics in day to day life by quoting varied examples. He showed the relationship that exists between analytic capability and organization value addition. He concluded his session by showing the application of SPSS software and interpretation of the same.

Prof. M N Vidyashankar IAS, Former Additional Chief Secretary spoke about “Water Revolution 2”. He explained how water sectors can be sustained in the country and the need to recycle wastewater. Recycling of waste water is the need of the hour as water shortage is felt throughout the world. He emphasised the need of effective methods for water recycling. He also explained how the countries like Israel and Singapore adopting new technology which have proved sustainable methods for water treatment.


Mr. Ramakrishna Y B, the Chairman - Working Group on Bio Fuels Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Government of India spoke on “Climate change challenges – Importance of western Ghats”. He told Western Ghats are one of India’s largest natural carbon sinks and a biodiversity hotspot. He also mentioned that uncertain rainfall pattern is one of the biggest impacts of climate change. He explained how humanity consumption is outstripping the earth resources. He emphasised on the necessities for conservation of ecosystems in order to sustain the biodiversity, hydrology and ecology.”

Prof. Robert C Richardson, the Director of the Institute of Design, Robotics and Optimization and Director of the Leeds EPSRC National Facility for Innovative Robotic Systems spoke on “Robotic Inspection maintenance and repair of urban water systems”. He held a prestigious research contract to explore the Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt using robotic technology and has discovered writing in the Great Pyramid that was hidden for thousands of years. He explained regarding the structure, motors and sensors required to build the robot. He also explained about under-water robotics.

Day Three of Sahyadri Conclave

During the first plenary session on Day Three of Sahyadri Conclave, Prof. Joseph Sifakis, The Turing Awardi in Computer Science, Emeritus Senior CNRS Researcher, Verimag spoke on “The nature of computing”. He said that Information is in the mind of the beholder. He stressed that Theory of computation is time ignorant. He spoke about the meaning of computing, Domains of knowledge – abstraction theory and modularity. He introduced Linking physicality and computation using two approaches namely digital physics and natural computing. He concluded the talk by quoting a Greek poem called Ithaka by Constantine P Cavafy.

The second plenary session was by Padmashri Ananth Agarwal, CEO of edX who delivered a talk on “Digital Education Transformation”. In his talk, he introduced an online MOOC platform called edX, developed by Harvard and MIT, USA. He said that there are about 14 million (11% of Indians) students currently enrolled in edX which comprises of 2000 courses in partnership with around 130 global partners ( Premier institutes and companies). He also spoke about Micromasters programme and emphasised that future of education is going to be modular education. He discussed about open edX – an open source LMS of edX for launching online courses. He also emphasised on active learning and promoted instant feedback. He said Modular education, Omni channel and lifelong education are the three important trends that will shape future education.

The third plenary session was by Mr. Ramakrishna Y B, the Chairman - Working Group on Bio Fuels Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Government of India who spoke on “Bio energy initiatives in India-Cutting edge technologies and policy frame work”. He stated that “The biggest wastage of resource in India is land”. He suggested that efficient utilisation of agricultural resource will solve most of the energy issues. He stated few case studies related to bio-energy initiatives in India. He also spoke about low carbon sectors including alternative fuels, cleaner fossil fuels and production of bio-fuel. He explained about the government schemes on natural fuel promotions.

Panel Discussion was held on the theme “Energy”. The panellists were Mr. Rajashekar Hiremath, President, Flexitron, Bengaluru, Mr. Sanjay Sahay, the Additional Director General of Police, Government of Karnataka and Ms. Yugratna Srivastava, Programme coordinator, Plant for Planet initiative. They discussed about the methods which could be adopted to make India a self-reliant country in terms of non-renewable energy resources which would contribute to the overall economic growth of the country. They discussed about the climate deal summit held at Paris in the month of December 2017 which had 195 countries participating in it. This summit addressed the issues related to climate change, impact of storing energy & generating energy. The panellists also addressed the queries put forward by the audience regarding new inventions in the field of conserving non-renewable sources of energy.

Simultaneously, there were technical sessions held in various venues of Sahyadri to address the domain specific participants like Computer Science & Information Science, Electronics & Communication, Mechanical and also Management.

Mr. Sanjay Sahay IPS, the Additional Director General of Police, Government of Karnataka spoke on “Cyber Security”. He stressed on the importance of Cyber Security in our daily lives. He suggested the students, especially CS/IS Streams, to become cyber warriors to establish their credibility in the society. Mr. Sahay covered the core aspects of cyber security and highlighted the issues with real world examples. The integrity of data was emphasized during the session. During his talk, Mr. Sahay quoted various issues like Meltdown and Spectre, WannaCry Ransomware attacks, Decrypt Petya Ransomware, LAZARUS, Watering Hole Attacks, Digital Darwinism etc. He highlighted the importance of migration from IPv4 to IPv6 for enhanced security. He also called upon students to do self-learning for improving their skills and competence. He stressed on the importance of preserving the data, which can be anything like money, health, assets, life etc. He concluded the session by quoting “Solution is not a Product and Product is not a solution”.

Mr. Rajashekar Hiremath, President, Flexitron, Bengaluru delivered a talk on “Future of Human transportation”. He stated that slow movement of vehicles in urban areas is 6 km/hr which causes huge man hours to be wasted and also causes pollution which intern leads to death by stress. Things which are required to check for traffic are speed of vehicle moving per hour, number of vehicles present in the path and also the number of people trying to overtake. To reduce the traffic jam, one of the major solutions would be to ban private vehicles by 2050 and to motivate public transports, self-driving cars (unmanned cars). He also illustrated the initiatives taken by BMW motors where they implemented sensors for collision avoidance and to detect the direction of movement.

Mr. Anoor Anantha Krishna Sharma, a Mridangist & the Founder of Anoor Anantha Krishna Sharma Foundation for Music, Bengaluru delivered a talk on “Mathematics in South Indian Classical Music with special emphasis on percussion instruments”. He stated that each and every stroke of the music tunes are going to be calculated mainly addition and subtraction. The main Kriyas are Shashabdha Kriya and Nishyabdha Kriya. The basic Thala of the music is Adi Thala. The oral numinous of the music is known as thala. The 3 speeds of music include: 8 bit, 16 bit (Rhythmic one) & 32 bit. The geometrical composition is Yathi’s. The uniform structure of beats is Samayathi. Structure of Mrudanga is Mrudangayathi. Structure of Damaru is Damarugayathi. Structure of Gopura is Gopuchchayathi. Structure of V is Shrothuvahayathi. He also spoke about the permutation and combination of maths in music. He stressed on the different types of phrases and said that playing music in higher beat is URUTU.

Mr. Rahul Kini, Sr. Manager, Finance Operations, Target Corporation Bengaluru apprised the audience on “Operations Management in ITES”. He began his session by sharing his own journey, hardships and experiences. He said “Failing is extremely important as it leads to the path of success”. He deliberated on the evolution of IT and ITES and the opportunities in this sector in the future. Mr. Rahul pointed at few critical success factors for the future managers namely Knowledge, Skill and Attitude.

Prof. Serge Haroche, a Nobel Laureate in Physics discussed about “How Laser has Revolutionized Physics in Last Fifty Years”. He gave a brief history of Lasers. He pointed out the differences between the Classical Lights and the Laser Lights. He continued the session by explaining various types of Lasers. He also spoke about how laser has made tremendous progress and has led to quantitative and qualitative revolution in basic research. Prof. Haroche also illustrated the history of measurement of time by highlighting various kinds of devices used for measuring time across various generations. He listed out the scientists who won Nobel Prize in the field of Laser. The session was moderated by Dr. Shankar Prasad, Founder and Chairman, Sampurna Swaraj Foundation.

Mr. Deva P Seetharam, one of the co-founders and the CEO of DataGlen spoke on “Lifelong kindergarten: a fun approach to engineering a career”. Mr. Seetharam started his speech by giving an example of the movie which inspired him, Sachin - A Billion Dream. He also said to read some of inspirational books like “The pleasure of finding things out” by Richard Fegnuan, “For the love of the physics” by Walter Lewis and “The Joy of mathematics” by Anthur Benjamin. According to him, all these books convey message to Love whatever you do. He was emphasizing on problems in education system where marks is the base for the career. Students choose professional courses as a matter of prestige. In some part of India, it may be a matter of Dowry system. He was encouraging Indian women to take professional courses. After doing engineering, there are many opportunities like IAS, Engineering, Professor, entrepreneur, pilot, and management.

Mr. V Krishna Venkataram, Professor & Head, Mechanical Engineering, PES Institute of Technology, Bengaluru spoke on “Mathematics in South Indian Classical Music with Special Emphasis on Percussion Instruments”. He briefed about koruppu, the session where they reduce the time and increase the bits levels. He explained about the Thala, where Thala is the musical time, i.e., physical act. The time difference between each thala is kept constant. He explained about LAYAGNANA is the ability to maintain the time in Thala. He demonstrated Adithala with 3 bits to 9 bits. He even told that western art of music are simple than the Indian. He briefed about Avadhana, Ashtavadhana, Shathavadhana. He briefed about Atheetha edupu and Anagatha Edupu. He suggested to read the book by L Rajarao on the music i.e., Sangeetha Chandra mohana.

Mr. Chethan Shenoy, Associate Director & Head of Investment Products Anand Rathi Securities, Mumbai delivered a talk on “Application of Financial Planning & Wealth Management”. During the session he explained various strategies an individual must formulate for wealth management and its implementation. He further explained various scenarios of investment and emphasized on the key to a wealthier future which lies in Knowledge and Application of the Knowledge. He gave away six lessons for every amateur investor which could lead them to better returns in their investment. He stressed on how proper asset allocation can help in increasing ones wealth over a period of time taking into consideration various risks associated with it. He advised the crowd to start early in order to get better returns in the long run.

Afternoon Sessions of Day Three