DTU Students participate in ITU Telecom World'09 Youth Forum
We are pleased to share with you that two of our engineering students were selected for participation in the prestigious International Telecommunication Union (ITU’s) Telecom World 2009 Youth Forum, which held in Geneva, Switzerland from 5th-9th October, 2009.
The students, Shravanti Joshi, a third year student of B.Tech (Electrical Engineering) and Anoop Ramakrishna, fourth year student of Electrical and Communication Engineering were the only students to be selected for this conference from India, where delegates from almost 190 countries participated.
These students were selected on the basis of recommendation made by DTU and the essay they wrote on the topic ‘Biggest problem faced by our community and how we can use Information and Communication Technology to solve these problems.’
The ITU Youth Forum is a unique and successful initiative for its focus on information and communication technologies (ICT) as a tool for social and economic development. Created by ITU in 2001, the Youth Forum has built an outstanding reputation for knowledge sharing. Shravanti’s experience on her visit.
“Around the world in just 8 days, instead of 80,” actually came true for me, Shravanti Joshi, a IIIrd year student of Electrical Engineering at Delhi Technological University (DTU), when I got a lifetime opportunity to represent India in the youth forum of International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecom World 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland, because I feel that any country is known by its citizens.
There were two students (one male and one female) from over 150 countries across the globe, we were selected by their respective Ministry of Communication and here in India, Dept of Telecom had selected us. I owe my golden experience and achievement to God, my parents, the Vice Chancellor of DTU, Prof. P B Sharma, Prof. R.K Sinha, Dean, IRD and all professors of DTU and Deptt of Telecom, Govt. of India as the event had a huge impact on me as a youth of India, giving me an opportunity to meet Mr. Ban-ki-Moon, Secretary General, UNO and Mr. Jorree, Secretary General, ITU. Meeting many individuals representing different cultures, different thoughts, coming from different socio-economic backgrounds was a real eye opener and brought me closer to humanity and mankind. We, the representatives from South-Asian countries wanted to bring into the notice of world that along with development of new technologies we must ensure its availability at lesser rates in remote places along with its sustainability with proper security issues in mind.
Mr. Ban-ki-Moon alongwith ITU and ITU Youth forum initiative called “Connect a School, Connect a Community” on global basis with a view that if we are successful in providing atleast one computer per school by 2015 all around the world, we would be able to connect all the communities with each other and hence shrink the world enhancing the beauty of our lovely planet. This event made me realize that instead of looking at problems, we should start working with its solutions. It has given me so much in terms of the experience and exposure and a zeal to do my bit to improve the communication technology in India, working for the society.
Mondialogo Engineering Award
The Mondialogo Engineering Award (MEA) is a part of the Mondialogo initiative launched by Daimler AG Stuttgart, Germany and UNESCO Paris, France in 2003. The Mondialogo Engineering Award invites student engineers from developing and developed countries to form international, multicultural teams to design projects aimed at improving the quality of life of people in developing countries, to contribute to addressing the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The Award seeks to encourage student engineers to tackle some of the major challenges of the 21st century. The Mondialogo Engineering Award consists of a total amount of € 300,000 – MEA Gold Awards of € 15,000, MEA Silver Awards of € 10,000 and MEA Bronze Awards of € 5,000. It is intended that these awards be used as “seed funding “to help develop and initiate the proposed projects.
This time around 932 project ideas were submitted from about 28 different countries out of which 30 project ideas were selected for giving presentations in the final symposium of MEA 08/09 held at Stuttgart, Germany on 9th Nov 2009. Our DTU team was part of this final symposium. The team consisted of Ms Shweta Chauhan, Ms Himani Gupta and Mr Vijyesh Narula. The DTU team collaborated with student’s team from Stanford University, USA and jointly developed the project “Using environmentally friendly technologies for the provision of clean water in India”. Ms Shweta Chauhan student of B.E Environmental Engineering represented her team in the final symposium where the team’s work was facilitated with MEA Gold Award. (In total eight projects were awarded Gold Medal this year).
Other Achievements
Ex- student Mr. Ashish Garg of COE 2008 Batch , currently doing MS from University of Minnesota, USA, was part of the team which was first academic partners to join Planetarty Sikn Insititute at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Best Research Paper Award The Research Paper of Ms. Swati Rawal relates to Design of Optical Memories based on Slow Light Generation from Photonic Crystals.
Ms. Swati Rawal, PhD Scholar in the Applied Physics Department has received the Best Research Paper Award in the International Conference on Optics and Photonics, ICOP 2009 at CSIO Chandigarh, October 29 - November 1, 2009.Ms. Rawal also received the Optics and Photonics Leadership Award 2009 from Optical Society of America.
Ankur Garg, Environmental Engineering 2009 has been selected as Shell Centenary Chevening Scholar, for studies at University of Cambridge for Master’s of Philosophy in Technology Policy at the Church Business School of Cambridge MIT Institute. Ms Shweta Chauhan student of B.E Environmental Engineering represented her team in the final symposium where the team’s work was facilitated with MEA Gold Award.
Read more in the adjacent article. Ms. Shravanti Joshi and Mr. Anoop Ramakrishna have been awarded International Telecom Union Award and were invited to attend WORLD YOUTH FORUM 2009 in Geneva from 3rd October to 10th October. Read more in the above article.