Editorial
Kaamya Sharma
Editorial
A few months (or an infinity) ago, the steady, onward movement of our lives halted. The world came to a standstill as it navigated a challenge on an unprecedented scale in the form of a pandemic. People everywhere stayed home as our public spaces became empty and deserted. Much has already been written about all this. Our screens and brains have been deluged by data and models. For some of us, work and life have shifted online, to an intensity perhaps never experienced before. In the middle of isolations, quarantines and social distancing, it is good to recall Olympic athlete Andrew Murphy’s important words: “you are confined only by the walls you build yourself”.
Even as scientists and medical researchers push the needle incrementally on what we know about the Covid-19 virus, there are vast areas that remain unexplored. This represents an enormous opportunity for the global scientific community and academia to be of service to society. Many predict that the world as we knew it will never be the same again. If this is true, we have collectively borne witness to the end of a way of life, indelibly defined by a pre- and a post-. Amidst these potential endings, it is fitting that we also have new beginnings. One such beginning is the launch of IIT Jodhpur’s Research Bulletin, TechScape.
In this first issue released to commemorate the Institute’s thirteenth Foundation Day, we bring to you a snapshot of the world of technology and science through a collection of detailed feature articles, fact boxes, research snippets, news and views, and commentary. As educational institutions everywhere reorient their pedagogical approaches in light of our new norms of social distancing, IIT Jodhpur is launching a slew of new undergraduate and postgraduate programmes that cater to a wide variety of prominent fields such as Data Science, Medical Technologies, Artificial Intelligence, Tech-Management, and Digital Humanities. The Institute is actively working to improve its pedagogical and research infrastructure through online teaching platforms, interaction spaces, and initiatives such as the Technology Innovation and Startup Centre and an Animal House. Mindful of the changing dynamics of the economy, the Institute is also bolstering its links with industry through Section 8 companies that effectively marry the interfaces of research and entrepreneurship. Our News and Views section features several pieces that provide deeper insights into the Institute’s efforts to improve education and industrial collaboration. Our In-Focus section features two articles: one sheds light on IIT Jodhpur’s efforts towards mitigating the effects of the pandemic and the other discusses the dynamic field of Quantum Information Processing and its implications for interdisciplinarity. The Research Snippets section chronicles the sheer breadth of ongoing research efforts at IIT Jodhpur featuring the contributions of various faculty members. Finally and most importantly, the Scientific Social Connect section features those research initiatives from IIT Jodhpur which resulted in tangible, lasting benefits to society at large.
We hope that the bulletin will be a valuable resource for those at IIT Jodhpur. More importantly, we hope that it will help disseminate IIT Jodhpur’s research and outreach efforts to our extended network of well-wishers, collaborators, partner institutions and the scientific community at large. This is a small but sure step in that direction.
