As part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, the Rashtriya Boudhik Sampada Mahotsav- IP (Intellectual Property) awareness campaign was jointly organised by CSIR-Structural Engineering Research Centre (CSIR-SERC) and CSIR-Central Leather Research Institute (CSIR-CLRI).
Day 1
On July 18, around 350 school children from Chennai Girls Higher Secondary School were invited to participate in the IP Awareness Programme event at CSIR Campus, Taramani.
S.Udhya Shanker, Dy Controller of Patents & Designs, Indian Patent Office, Chennai, was the chief guest of the event. Dr.N.Anandavalli, Director, CSIR-SERC and Co-ordinating Director, CMC, delivered the welcome address. The Director said the reason for selecting school children as the audience for this function is that young minds have a lot of creative ideas. It is important that they should be aware of protecting intellectual rights at their young age, “As India is heading towards global leadership, protecting our IP rights is very important.”
The chief guest delivered the IP Festival lecture on ‘Introduction to IPR and its Impact’. He explained to the students, in simple words, what Intellectual property is and the importance of protecting it. He also mentioned that IPR protects the owner of the original knowledge by excluding the others; further, he/she and none other, can earn by commercialising the ideas. He also explained about Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks and Design in detail. He also explained that more than invention, it was important to know how to protect the knowledge treasure by means of patents, copyrights, etc. He gave a small quiz to the students to evaluate their understanding and the students did well.
Dr.N.Anandavalli also delivered the lecture on ‘Artificial Intelligence – An Overview’. In her lecture she spoke of some of the latest inventions that play a major role in our day to day activities. She explained in a simple manner about artificial intelligence and pointed out that imitating the models, systems and elements of nature can help solve complex problems. She detailed more by quoting examples of aeroplanes based on the flight of the eagle bird, and reducing the noise of bullet trains entering the tunnel on seeing the motion of the kingfisher etc. She also made the students understand the diversity of disciplines in the artificial intelligence and talked on nature inspired algorithms like (i) Evolutionary algorithms based on Darwin’s theory of evolution, (ii) Bio-inspired algorithm – based on the commonly observed behaviour in the animals and (iii) Swarm Intelligence Algorithm- based on the behaviour of insects living in the colonies and how that knowledge is used in our inventions like Robotics, Self driving cars, identifying traffic, etc.
The participating students were awarded with certificates. The students also visited the Labs of CSIR-SERC.
Day 2
On July 19, around 300 students from various engineering colleges in and around Chennai were invited to participate in the IP Awareness Programme event at CSIR Campus, Taramani, Chennai.
Dr.R.Bhanumathi, Deputy Controller of Patents & Designs, Indian Patent Office, Chennai, was the chief guest of the function. Dr.N.Anandavalli delivered the welcome address. Dr.Subhendu Chakrabarti, Chief Scientist, CSIR-CLRI, introduced the chief guest to the audience.
Dr.Bhanumathi, delivered the IP Festival Lecture on ‘Intellectual property rights-Indian perspective’. She explained to the students about various types of Intellectual Property such as Patent, Copyright, Trademark, Design in detail and the means and ways to protect it. She explained how the IPR protects the owner of the original knowledge by excluding others.
The event was coordinated by R.D.Sathish Kumar, Principal Technical Officer CSIR-SERC, and Dr.Tamil Selvi, Sr. Principal Scientist, CSIR-CLRI, proposed a vote of thanks.
