Week-long workshop on Artificial Intelligence begins at NIT Srinagar

'There is need to optimize energy at every level, Artificial Intelligence can be an alternative solution for innovations: Prof. Sehgal

'There is need to optimize energy at every level, Artificial Intelligence can be an alternative solution for innovations: Prof. Sehgal

Srinagar, July 05:(KNS)    A week-long virtual workshop on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Solution for Optimum Utilization of Power and Energy began at the National Institute of Technology, (NIT) Srinagar on Monday, and inaugural session was attended by more than 150 participants from across the country.  

The workshop was sponsored by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) in collaboration with ATAL academy organized by the Department of Electrical Engineering, NIT Srinagar, while Prof. Aijaz Ahmad Zargar and Dr. Kushal M Jagtap are the coordinators of the workshop.

The inaugural session of the workshop was presided over by the Director, Prof.(Dr.) Rakesh Sehgal. He said there is a need to optimize energy at every level and Artificial Intelligence solutions for more innovations.

Prof. Sehgal said artificial intelligence can be applied to maximize the power generation whether it be a thermal, hydro, nuclear or non-conventional power sources like solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, etc. 

Prof. Sehgal said applying AI can minimize transmission losses, power thefts and then take it to the consumer level for optimal use of energy. The consumption of energy is at its peak following the growing population, materialistic needs of human society, he said.

Director NIT also appreciated the EE department team led by Head of Department (HOD) Dr. Mohammad Abid Bazaz, Prof. Aijaz Ahmad Zargar, and Dr. Kushal M Jagtap for organizing a number of courses. He said such courses will continue to be organized in future also and the department is expanding its activities with each passing day.

"In future NIT Srinagar can collaborate with other institutions so that we can gain from each other's experience. We can have a mutual understanding of learning on different technical aspects," he said.

Registrar NIT, Prof. Kaiser Bukhari also appreciated the EE department for conducting workshops on relevant themes. He said these sessions are the need of the hour and will explore more in-depth knowledge to the participants.

On the occasion, HOD Electronics Engineering Department, Dr. Mohammad Abid Bazaz said the objective of this workshop is to enhance the knowledge of AI-based programming tools to achieve the optimum solution for multi-dimensional problems in the power grids, globally. It will help the industrial person, researchers, and faculty to learn the practical implementation of AI on real-world complex problems.

He thanked all the resources persons for accepting to share their experiences with the participants and appreciated the contribution of Prof. Aijaz and Dr. Kushal M Jagtap for taking an initiative for conducting a week-long course on such an important and relevant topic.

Dr. Bazaz said the five-day-long workshop will add more knowledge to all the participants as we have invited resource persons from IIT's, NIT's and PSU's for the same.

In his address, Prof. Aijaz Ahmad said there are still 860 million people across the world, who have no access to electricity, while 3 billion are still using traditional methods of energy including burning firewood, using kerosene, etc to meet their cooking and heat demand. It matters a concern and a challenge for all of us, he said.

Prof. Aijaz said renewable energy has a vital and greater role in countering these challenges. We have to explore more possibilities of pollution-free and clean energy, he said.

During the inaugural session, Dr. Shekhar Kelapure, Consultant and Energy auditor said everywhere there are challenges but we need to resolve them with technology and innovations.

"So far we were using conventional algorithms and we find them now as inadequate following deficiencies in algorithms. During the past several decades there are been developed in artificial intelligence. Although during the initial stage it was a bit tough now it has come to a level where other technologies successfully used these innovations,' he said.

Dr. Kelapure said there is a very important gap that has bridge by such workshops and this will be important not just for practicing engineers but also for researchers. It will explore the possibilities that how new technologies will be used to take to the people for efficient usage, he said.

The week-long workshop is moderated and hosted by Dr. Kushal M Jagtap from the Department of Electrical Engineering.

The technical sessions on Monday were hosted by Dr. Shekhar Kelapure, Consultant and Energy auditor, and Dr. Ankush Sharma, EED, Assoc. Prof. IIT Kanpur and Dr. Dheeraj Khatod, EED, Assoc. Prof. IIT Roorkee.

On Tuesday,  Er. Jag Pravesh Verma, Executive engineer, SAIL, Dr. Anup Shukla, EED, Asst. Prof, IIT Jammu, Dr. V N Lal, EED, Asst. Prof, IIT BHU will deliver their lectures.

Dr. Sanjib Ganguly, EED, Associate. Prof. IIT Guwahati, Dr. Ranjan Behera, EED, Assoc. Prof. IIT Patna and Dr. Rohit Bhakar, EED, Assoc. Prof, MNIT Jaipur will deliver their lectures on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Dr. Rajesh Kumar, EED, Professor MNIT Jaipur, Dr. Vignesh V EED, Asst. Prof, IIT Tirupati, and Dr. Nidul Sinha, EED, Professor NIT Silchar will deliver their topics and will host all three sessions during the day.

On the concluding day of the workshop, Dr. Rohit Bhakar, EED, j Assoc. Prof, MNIT Jaipur, Dr. Dhammapal Sahebrao Bhamare, MBBS, MD will hold a Spiritual talk and it will be followed by a quiz and valedictory function.(KNS)

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