Monthly Archives: January 2018

Event: “The cryoEM revolution in structural biology” by Richard Henderson (2017 Nobel, Chemistry)

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IISER Pune is pleased to announce a public lecture by the 2017 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Prof. Richard Henderson (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK), on:

The cryoEM revolution in structural biology

Abstract: In the last few years, single particle electron cryo-microscopy (cryoEM) has experienced a quantum leap in its capability, due to improved electron microscopes, better detectors and better software, and this is revolutionising structural biology. Using the technique invented by Jacques Dubochet and his colleagues, a thin film containing a suspension of the macromolecules of interest is plunge-frozen into liquid ethane at liquid nitrogen temperature, creating a frozen sample in which individual images of the structures can be seen in many different orientations. Subsequent computer-based image analysis is then used to determine the three-dimensional structure, frequently at near-atomic resolution. Prof. Henderson will show examples of some recent structures, and discuss remaining barriers to progress. CryoEM is already a very powerful method, but there are still many improvements that can be made before the approach reaches its theoretical limits. Prof. Henderson will also include some historical perspective on how he became an electron cryomicroscopist.

Fees, Registration, and Logistics

This event is open to all. No registration required.

The event is on Sunday, January 21, 5pm, at Sir. C. V. Raman Auditorium, Lecture Hall Complex, IISER Pune

Event: Electric Cars, Self-Driving Cars, and Next Generation Transportation Technologies, 22 Jan

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IESA (India Electronics and Semiconductor Association) presents a tech event focusing on next generation technologies in the transportation sector, including electric cars, battery technology, autonomous and connected vehicles, and related topics, on Monday, 22 Jan, 5pm to 7pm at MCCIA, SB Road.

The talks and speakers are as follows:

  • Adoption of EV in USA and opportunities in India, Dr. Rajiv Mathur, Head of Smart Transportation Programs at ProspectSV, San Jose, CA.
  • Next Generation Technologies in Automotive Electronics, Mr. Amit Jain, CEO and Exec Director, Advanced Electronics, Technology and Development, UNO Minda, NK Minda group.
  • Electronics Technology in Off-Highway vehicles, Mr. Devendra Bahirat, Head, John Deere Electronic Solutions, India and China

Adoption of EV in USA and opportunities in India

Abstract: Consumer electric vehicles have been in the US market since 2011, and have seen increasing acceptance supported by government policy coupled with financial incentives for consumers. While nearly all major OEMs have some EV offering, or plan to in the near future, market forces such as dropping oil prices, lack of EVSE and electric grid capacity have the potential to derail the growth trajectory of EV adoption. On the technology front, a breakthrough in inexpensive, high capacity and quick charging battery can accelerate faster adoption. More recently active research has now shifted to autonomous and connected vehicles. We will discuss this and related topics in this presentation.

Speaker Profile: Dr. Rajiv Mathur is the Head of Smart Transportation Programs at ProspectSV, responsible for many fronts from client engagements to operating ITS Signal Lab and helping accelerate new technology demonstrations in the TIZ. Working with the City of San Jose, and RSM, an innovative technology start-ups, he has facilitated sensor deployment at a city intersection to determine granular road usage data collection and for visualizing traffic flows in 2D and 3D. Rajiv is collaborating with California Dept of Transportation (CalTrans) in bringing leading industry partners to utilize and enhance the Connected Vehicles test bed in Palo Alto, CA. Prior to ProspectSV, he spent a year at Bay Area Climate Collaborative, as an Encore Fellow working on a variety of new EV program initiatives. Prior Rajiv had a three decade plus career at Intel Corporation in Santa Clara in a diverse array of technical and management positions related to silicon process and device modeling, and simulation. Most recently he served as Program Director in Intel Labs’ University Collaborative Research division where he managed Intel’s academic collaboration to several academic research centers at top tier universities, both in US and Europe. Rajiv holds a B.Sc. degree from St. Stephens College, (Delhi, 1974), an M.Sc. from Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur, 1976) and Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon University (Pittsburgh, 1981), all in Physics.

Electronics Technology in Off-Highway vehicles

Abstract: Electronic components are widely used in Agricultural and off-highway vehicles in developed countries since 1990s. Advance technologies like GPS, Power Electronics and auto steer are also being adopted since last couple decades. Productivity and yield improvements are the main drivers behind the introduction of these technologies. We will discuss some of these examples. We will also look at some examples in India and what are the challenges that we face in this region in terms of technology introduction.

Speaker Profile:Devendra is associated with John Deere since April of 2000. Over the past few years he has successfully held numerous positions in the area of Electronics in the US and India. In his current role, he is heading John Deere Electronic Solutions, India and China. In is current role he has set up manufacturing plant for Electronic control units which are used in India and also exported to other John Deere units globally. Devendra is an active member of SAEINDIA for last several years. He led various activities of SAEINDIA OFF-HIGHWAY board during his tenure as the chairman of the board. Devendra completed Executive General Management from IIM, Bangalore, and holds degree in Electronics and Telecommunications from Pune University.

Organized By

  • Mr. Ashok Chandak, IESA Past Chairman
  • Mr. Niranjan A. Pol (Member, Board of Directors and Exec Council), IESA and IESA Auto CIG CoChair
  • Mr. Sanjay Gupta, IESA Auto CIG Co-Chair

Registration, Fees, and Logistics

The talk is free, and open to all. Please RSVP at: support@iesaonline.org +91 80 41473251/+91 9535022268/+91 9900243972 Gaurav K Punjabi +91 9900919234

The talk is on Monday, 22 January from 5pm to 7pm, atSumant Moolgaokar Auditorium, No. 1 (A Wing, Ground Floor) 505, A-Wing, MCCIA Trade Tower, ICC Complex, 403, Senapati Bapat Road, Pune.

Venture Center Pune invites startup applications for seed funding from Department of Science and Technology

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Pune-based Government-funded Startup Incubator, Venture Center, (winner of a national award for best technology incubator in 2015) is hosting a seed fund with a corpus of Rs 10 crore under the scheme “National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations – Seed Support System (NIDHI-SSS)” of the Department of Science and Technology.

The basic idea of NIDHI seed support is providing financial assistance to potential startups with promising ideas, innovations and technologies. This would enable some of these incubatee startups with innovative ideas/technologies to graduate to a level where they will be able to raise investments from angel/Venture capitalist or they will reach a position to seek loans from commercial banks /financial institutions. Thus the proposed seed support disbursed by an incubator to an incubatee is positioned to act as a bridge between development and commercialization of innovative technologies/products/services in a relatively hassle free manner.

Broad Areas to be covered under the financial assistance include:

  • Product development
  • Testing and trials
  • Test Marketing
  • Mentoring
  • Professional Consultancy ( To attract Professors of institutions to work with small firms)
  • IPR issues
  • Man power for day to day operations
  • Any other area as deemed necessary and recommended by the Management Committee.

The Seed fund emphasizes:

  • Alignment with Venture Center’s Focus areas
  • Product offerings (vs service offerings)
  • IP-rich enterprises
  • Strong knowledge components in enterprises

Eligibility Conditions for start-ups to apply for seed support

  • Incubatee should be a registered company in India
  • Incubatee has to be an Indian start-up. This support is not meant for Indian Subsidiaries of MNCs/foreign companies. Persons holding Overseas Citizens of India (OCI), Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) would be considered as Indian citizens for the purpose of this scheme.
  • The share holding by Indian promoters in the incubate start up should be at least 51%.

Selection Criteria:

Here is a list of make/break criteria for applicants:

  • There must be at-least one dedicated entrepreneur involved in the venture
  • There must be a formal business plan
  • The idea and team should be technically sound
  • The venture and the team must have high ethical & professional standards
  • The venture must have a strong technology/knowledge component
  • EHS requirements must be met
  • The team should show potential and credibility for raising money in future
  • The venture must be registered as a private limited company, or must be in the process of registration
  • The amount of funding requested must be less than Rs 100 lakh
  • The entrepreneur(s) must be willing to share equity in the venture
  • The applicant must be or willing to be resident incubatee of Venture Center before investment

Applications for the seed fund will be reviewed based on criteria such as (but not limited to):

  • Is amount of funding requested enough to reach critical milestone?
  • Does the venture have a clear, potentially significant/singular value proposition
  • How big/fast growing is the potential market?
  • Are target customers clearly identified?
  • How credible is the technology? (Is PoC credible in the opinion of subject-matter experts?)
  • Are there regulatory/certification/policy risks?
  • What are the sources of sustainable competitive advantage (eg. novelty, patentability, etc.)?
  • What is the quality of the business plan (revenue model, product roadmap, market segments, etc.)?

Typical terms for seed funding:

  • Selected start-up should be/become a resident incubatee of Venture Center and should have completed three months of residency at Venture Center at the time of seed fund investment.
  • Investment mode: Equity ownership in a private limited company
  • Investment amount: Up to 100 lakh
  • BoD representation: 1 Board Nominee Director and/or observer of Venture Center
  • Reporting: Bi-annual presentation to SEED Fund committee + Annual financials/MIS

Application form can be downloaded here.

Interested start-ups are encouraged to contact Venture Center for further information @ shruti@venturecenter.co.in / 020 25865877/78/76

ReactFoo Pune: React and React Native Developers Conference—19-20 Jan

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ReactFoo Pune is a two-day event for React and React Native Developers, focusing on the following topics:

  1. Success and failure stories of implementing React and React Native for your use-case.
  2. Lessons learned in shifting codebase from older frameworks to React.
  3. Comparative advantages of React and other JS frameworks.
  4. Comparative advantages of React Native in working on mobile applications.
  5. Security concerns.

This is an event by HasGeek, which is known for good quality events.

Who should attend?

  • Engineers looking to learn from case studies of other practitioners.
  • Decision-makers considering the pros and cons of switching to React.
  • Cross-platform mobile developers and React Native enthusiasts.

Why you should attend?

  • To learn from and network with peers from the industry.
  • To gain insights from case studies of practical implementation, and evaluate ReactJS and React Native for your work.
  • To program better with React and React Native.

Agenda

  • Single track of talks and Birds of a Feather (BOF) sessions on 19 January.
  • Hands-on workshops on 20 January.

See the conference website for detailed schedule, and specifics of talks and speakers

Fees, Registration and Logistics

This is a paid conference. Please register and buy tickets here.

Location: 505, A-Wing, MCCIA Trade Tower, ICC Complex, 403, Senapati Bapat Road, Pune.

Entrepreneurial Visions—A Startup Event by Ideaspring Capital, 8 Jan

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Persistent Systems, and Ideaspring Capital invite Innovators and Entrepreneurs in the Technology space for a startup event on how best to ideate, innovate and implement.

AGENDA

  • 4:00PM | Registration
  • 4:30PM | Welcome Address by Dr. Anand Deshpande
  • 4:35PM | Why India is prime for product innovation (Talk + Q&A) by Sharad Sharma
  • 5:05PM | Ideaspring thesis by Naganand Doraswamy
  • 5:20PM | Panel discussion with Pravin Bhagwat, Arihant Patni, Vinay Nathan hosted by Dr. Anand Deshpande
  • 5:50PM | Q&A and closing comments by Arihant Patni, MD, Ideaspring Capital
  • 6:00PM | Refreshments

Speakers/Panelists include:

  • Dr. Anand Deshpande, Chairman and Managing Director, Persistent Systems
  • Sharad Sharma, Co-founder and Governing Council, Member of iSPIRT
  • Arihant Patni, MD, Ideaspring Capital
  • Naganand Doraswamy, Serial Entrepreneur turned Investor
  • Pravin Bhagwat, Founder and CTO of MojoNetworks
  • Vinay Nathan, Co-founder and CEO of Altizon Systems

This event is free and open for all to attend. Register here.

Hands on overview of the Kotlin programming language

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Presenting Hands on overview of Kotlin programming language by Dhananjay Nene. Brought to you by PuneTech, TechJam Pune, and SICSR. The event is free for anybody to attend, but registration is required

Agenda

  • 4:30 – 5:00 pm Networking
  • 5:00 – 7:00 pm Introduction to Kotlin
  • 7:00 – 7:15 pm Q&A and Closure

We will start exactly on time, so please plan to reach a bit early.

Abstract of the Talk – Hands on overview of Kotlin programming language

This session will cover an introduction to the Kotlin programming language and lots of hands on examples of how Kotlin helps write concise, safe and expressive code. It will also refer to how naturally Kotlin interoperates with existing Java libraries and frameworks and how Java and Kotlin frameworks and libraries can work smoothly with each other. The session will focus on core programming rather than any specific areas such as Android or Web or other specialised types of programming.

The audience is presumed to be reasonably aware of Java programming.

About Kotlin

Kotlin is one of the hottest new programming languages in recent times. One of the fast growing languages of 2017, it has the potential to become the preferred language for Android app development, for backend development on the JVM, and even has to potential for use in the frontend (browser). It is a concise and modern language with many advanced features like null safety, extension functions, infix notation. It has full Java compatibility (so you can use all Java libraries without any significant impedence mismatch), good IDE support (Android Studio, and IntelliJ), improves code readability, reusability, and development speed.

Kotlin has been announced as an official Android Development language by Google, and it has been adopted by a number of high-profile companies like Amazon Web Services, Pinterest, Coursera, Netflix, Uber, Square, Trello, Basecamp, and others.

About the Speaker – Dhananjay Nene

Dhananjay is a Software Engineer with over 26 years of experience in programming. He has worked with Citicorp  and AT&T in the pre millennial times. After that as a consultant he has worked on providing solutions to a number of diverse problems including building interactive educational software for pre teen children, building administration suites for workflow authoring applications, creating applications that compute electromagnetic wave signal strengths, financial supply chain services and building frameworks and applications which process in excess of a million financial transactions per hour.

For the last year he has spent most of his time on GST and he wrote, and helps manage, Vayana GSP—one of India’s leading GSPs. GSPs are the licensed systems that allow ERPs and accounting softwares to interface with the GST Network. The Vayana GSP is written in Kotlin.

Apart from programming, he has been involved with the cloud for more than a decade including all aspects of operations management and operation automation. He has switched across a number of roles including those of a developer, chief architect, chief technology officer and head of product development. He continues to be passionate about programming and design and all that comes under the umbrella of software engineering.
Dhananjay has done his post graduation from IIM-Ahmedabad, and has been involved in Senior Management positions, and has managed team sizes in excess of 120 persons.

Specialties: Software Architecture, Technology Research, OO Modeling and Design, Programming

Fees, Registration, Logistics

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here.

The event is in Room 707, on the 7th floor, from 4:30pm to 7:00pm, on Saturday, 6 January, at SICSR, Model Colony. Note: This is Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, near Om Supermarket Circle. There are 2 or 3 different Symbiosis institutes on the same road, so read the signs carefully to ensure that you’re entering the correct one.