Over 350 participants from engineering colleges across India took part in Mahindra University’s third annual R&D showcase, the Mahindra University Research Symposium (MURS) that took place on 26 and 27 of November 2020. Due to the pandemic, it was a virtual symposium.

 Over 150 research papers were submitted for presentation at MURS2020, out of which 60 were selected after careful review for presentation under different tracks like oral, poster and prototype presentation – all around the symposium theme ‘Sustainable Development’. All categories of students – UG, PG and PhD had submitted papers.

 The Vice-Chancellor of Mahindra University Dr. Yajulu Medury inaugurated MURS and there were brief addresses by the Dean Academics Dr. Bishnu Pal, and the Dean Research Dr. Arya Kumar Bhattacharya. The event was coordinated by a faculty team consisting of Drs. Jayasri Dontabhaktuni (Lead), Gomathi Anandhanatarajan, Prafulla Kalapatapu, Venkata Dilip Kumar Pasupuleti, and Prasad Pokkunuri. The colleges that participated in the MURS included besides the host Mahindra University, included IIT Roorkee, IIT-ISM Dhanbad, NIT Warangal,  SRM IST, VIT, NIT Surathkal, IIT Bhubaneswar, Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge & Technologies, Maturi Venkata Subba Rao Engineering College, Punjab University, IIT Hyderabad etc.

The guest speakers for MURS 2020 included renowned academicians and industrialists, as well as Mahindra University Alumni, who shared their experience and work with the students.

 The keynote speaker for the event was Prof. Santanu Chaudhury, Director at IIT Jodhpur. His multimedia talk dwelt on recent advancements in the areas of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) and their applications in the virtual reconstruction and multimedia depiction of national heritage sites like Hampi Temple, Viswanath Temple etc., for example. This was followed by a plenary talk by Prof. Ganesh Baglar from IIIT Delhi on Computational Gastronomy, and a talk by Dr. Shankar Venugopal, VP of Mahindra Research Valley on the topic ‘Mobility Engineer 2030’. Their talks seeded the young minds with knowledge about the latest developments in various technical fields of immense general interest.

On the second day, the event started off with the inauguration of Green office logo of MU. GO is a student body devoted to promote sustainability in education, research and various other institutional activities. This was followed by plenary talks by Prashant Lingam, founder of Bamboo House India and Prof. Prasanta Panigrahi from IISER Kolkata on Quantum Computing.

 Each presentation and talk introduced many interesting ideas and promoted stimulating discussions amongst the students, who gained a lot of knowledge and motivation.

 The series of interesting and thought-provoking sessions ended with the poster presentations, in which the participating students presented their research ideas and projects in the form of posters to the panel of faculty judges.

 The winners of MURS in the oral presentation category were: Rahul Arepaka (Mahindra University) who presented work on Cable lifted automated robot for Agriculture, Subhajit Karmarkar(IIT Delhi and MU) who shared concepts of Fano resonance in metamaterials – an important phenomenon in optical physics, characterized by sharp asymmetric spectral feature and low radiative loss channel, and Pritam Singh (IIT Roorkee) – Zero-waste sustainable and environmentally friendly technology for 2G-ethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass.

 In the poster category presentations, the winners  were: Krishna Shankar (IIT Roorkee) – Homogentisic acid-based whole-cell biosensor for detection of Alkaptonuria disease, Anil Kumar (NIT Surathkal) – Solar Cooker with Low Cost Sensible Heat Storage medium, and Phurba Tamang (Royal University, Bhutan) – Stability Analysis and Stabilization of Recurring Slope Failure along Dewathang-SamdrupJongkhar Highway.

The winners in the Prototype Presentation category were: Sai Bhargav Reddy (IIT-ISM  Dhanbad) – Model to forecast crop yield using satellite multispectral & hyperspectral remote sensing to support better agricultural practices and Dr. Shailendra Singh (IIT Roorkee) – Real time monitoring of biomass, lipid and nitrate dynamic profile using innovative light evolution kinetic model.