DAY 1 of INSPIRE Internship Programme 2015 Organized by Amity University Madhya Pradesh

Lt Gen VK Sharma, AVSM (Retd), the Hon’ble Vice Chancellor, AUMP addressing the gathering

Floral Welcome of Dr. W. Selvamurthy, President (Honorary), Amity Science Technology & Innovation Foundation & Chairperson for Life Science, Amity University Noida and the Chief Guest of the Inaugural Session

Dr A. Mukhopadhyay, Staff Scientist – VII, National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi talking on Cell Biology

General

Amity University Gwalior organized a five day Inspire Internship Programme from 19-23 January 2015. The aim of the programme was to encourage the brilliant young minds to the study of basic sciences and technology at an early stage and select R&D as a career. The programme was sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) Govt. of India, New Delhi. The bar of eligibility for the students participants was fairly high, with students scoring more than 95 percent marks in ICSE or A1 grade in CBSE or 84.5 percent marks in MP Board in 10th class were eligible to participate. Approximately 200 students from 11 different schools of Gwalior participated in the events. The science teachers from various schools also participated in this INSPIRE Science Camp.

Inaugural Session and First Day : 19 January 2015

The Inaugural session started with traditional lighting of lamp and Saraswati Vandana. Inaugurating the programme, Hon’ble Vice Chancellor, Amity University Gwalior Lt Gen VK Sharma, AVSM (Retd) delivered the opening remarks and presented the importance of INSPIRE to the student participants. Dr.W. Selvamurthy, President (Honorary)-Amity Science, Technology & Innovation Foundation (ASTIF) and Chair Professor for Life Sciences, Amity University was the Chief Guest and key note speaker of the seminar. He delivered the keynote address on objectives of the science based research. He stressed that in order to improve the quality of life and combat hunger and diseases, the future researchers need to develop the next generation products and technologies, which can be achieved only by research in basic sciences. Dr. Selvamurthy encouraged and motivated the students to do what they love and enjoy a better living. He viewed that wonders can be achieved only by combining talent, technical skills, logical minds through proper human interfaces. Prof. (Dr.) S.G. Deshmukh, Director, ABV-IIITM, Gwalior was the Guest of Honour of the Inaugural Function.He delivered the address on “Nature Inspired Innovations”, he motivated students to observe and use nature’s design principles to innovate and learn to adapt. Next Mentor of session was Prof. R. K. Singh, Senior Principal Scientist and Deputy Director, Division of Toxicology CSIR – CDRI Lucknow. He motivated the audience through his talk on ”Safety Assessment of a New Male Anti fertility Injection- RISUG in India for 21st Century”. In Post lunch session, the students were inspired by mentor Dr.R.K. Sharma from Department of Mathematics, IIT New Delhi, by his lecture on “Mathematics in Daily life”. Emphasizing on role of symmetry, while playing with numbers and fundamentals of coding and decoding, he gave the tricks of solving puzzles to he participants. The last mentor of first day was Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Awardee Scientist, Dr. Amitabha Mukhopadhyay of National Institute of Immunology (NII), New Delhi. He emphasized on the need to understand the biology of pathogens and develop a defence systems, which will destruct the pathogens like bacteria and virus on entering the human body. He motivated the students to take up careers in “Cell Biology” by presenting various perspectives and challenges. He focused on these perspectives through examples, and demonstrated the same through the hands- on -session.