Administration

1. Mr. Suresh Lal - Executive Director, VICT
2. Mr. P N Unnirajan - Director-Administration, VICT
3. Mr. Gireesh Kumar - Secretary, VICT

Advisors and Reviewers

1. Dr. Sudha Balagopalan - Prof. & Dean-Academics
2. Dr T N Padmanabhan Nambiar - Adjunct Faculty

Research Group

1. Dr. Saji C B - Principal, VAST
2. Dr. Ramani Bai V - Head of V-CAIR

Faculty club

1. Ms. Nirmala Krishnan - Assistant Professor, CE
2. Mr. Vibin Antony P - Assistant Professor, ME
3. Mr. Manesh D - Assistant Professor, MCA
4. Ms. Nisha A B - Associate Professor, AS
5. Dr. Siju K C - Assistant Professor, AS
6. Dr. A P Sobha - Associate Professor, AS

 

   SAP and V-CAIR conducts workshop on AI and hands-on session on LED Star Assembly.

Under the aegis of Science Awareness Programme (SAP), an initiative from Vidya family for creating deep understanding and appreciation of science among school students, Vidya along with VCAIR organised a workshop on  Artificial Intelligence and a hands-on session in LED Star Assembly on 4 January 2020. The programme was funded by Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE). As many as 79 students of classes 10, 11 and 12 from four different schools (HSS Panangad, Durgavilasam HSS Peramangalam, Appu Memorial School Thaikaad and Sree Sarada Math HSS Muthuvara)  in Thrissur district participated in the programme.

The inaugural ceremony of the programme was held at 9.30 AM in the Pranavam Auditorium. Dr Latha Raj, Advisor, SAP and Director, Students Welfare and Social Projects, welcomed everyone to the session. Dr Saji C B, Principal, presided over the function. Er G Mohanachandran, Executive Director, VICT, inaugurated the programme by lighting the traditional lamp. He also delivered the inaugural address. All the speakers stressed the importance and applications of Artificial Intelligence. Following this, a special address was delivered by Mr K K Thilakan, SAP Coordinator, VICT. Ms Akhila R (AP, EEE Dept and the SAP Convenor) delivered the vote of thanks.

The session on Artificial Intelligence was conducted by experts from Vidya affiliated to V-CAIR, namely, Mr Suraj Rajappan (AP, ECE Dept) and Mr Sreekanth R Shekar (AP, EEE Dept). They were joined by Mr Hemanth J (S7 B Tech CSE) the student secretary of the AI Club in Vidya. There was also a very good interactive session.

Vidya faculty members give invited talks on AI in National Seminar

Mr Suraj Rajappan (AP, ECE Dept) delivered an invited talk on “Machine Learning and Deep Learning – Case Studies in Al” and and Mr Sreekanth R Shekar (AP, EEE Dept) delivered a talk on “Machine Learning and Deep Learning – The Future of AI” in the National Seminar on “Artificial Intelligence in Indian Industry: Looking Forward” organised by Albertian Centre for Human Resource Development and Research, St. Albert’s College (Autonomous), Ernakulam, Kochi-682 018, on 29 November 2019.

Wednesday-AI organise classes on Python

The Wednesday AI-Club of VAST conducted training sessions on the Python programming language on two consecutive Wednesdays: 9 October 2019 and 16 October 2019. Mr Ravishankar (AP, CSE Dept) led the programme assisted by AI-Club members. The sessions covered the fundamentals of Python. The classes were at a pace such that every student could digest the concepts.

Wednesday-AI discusses Datix Hackathon challenges

Wednesday-AI is an initiative of AI Club VAST under Vidya Centre for AI and Research (VCAIR). AI Club VAST is a community of AI enthusiasts and learners who share a passion for the world of Artificial Intelligence. It provides a platform for them to meet and learn from each other while building solutions for real-world problems.

Week 2 of the Wednesday-AI session was held on 3 October 2019 at the Advanced Computing Lab from 4:30 PM to 6:15 PM. The session was held on the topic “Solution for the World Class ML Challenge in Datix Hackathon” along with sharing of useful tips for ML projects by the First Prize Winners.

The resource persons handling the session were Mr Vishnu Prasad, Mr Nikhil PS and Mr Rohit Nair (Vidya CSE Alumni – 2019 passed out) who were placed at Datix Analytics, USA for their outstanding performance in the Hackathon conducted by Datix at Vidya last year.

The session was introduced by Mr.Rahul Vincent S7 B Tech ECE and the resource persons were introduced by their mentor Mr Ravishankar S. The team presented their prize-winning solution to the members of the AI Club of Vidya aand explained how they approached the problem and what methods were implemented to reach an outcome with the highest accuracy. The trio also gave the students tips on how to breakdown any ML-based problem and arrive at a solution.

About 65 students from various branches, who participated  in the session got benefitted by the session. The session was concluded by Dr Ramani Bai V, Head-VCAIR, and Mr Ravishankar S, Technical Lead-VCAIR, presented mementos to the resource persons.

A new milestone from VCAIR - WEDNESDAY-AI

 Wednesday AI, an event under V-CAIR (Vidya Center for Artificial Intelligence and Research) and AI Club VAST was officially inaugurated on 25th September 2019 at 3:30 PM. "Wednesday AI" is the students' forum which promotes the discussions and exchange of ideas in AI Research & Projects  and meets up every Wednesday from 4.45pm to 5.45pm excluding examination and study Holidays.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by the principal Dr. Saji C B, Academic Dean, Dr. Sudha Balagopal, Vice Principal, Dr. Krishnachandran, and the Head of the departments Dr. Ramani Bai and Dr. Swapna Kumar from CSE and ECE respectively along with the students from various departments.

The following new office bearers were also selected for the AI Club 2019-20 batch.
AI Club Secretary: Mr. Sreehari G Varma S7 ECE B
AI Club Joint Secretaries:  Mr. Hemanth Janesh S7 CSE B & Mr. Vinay Vincent S5 EEE B

Staff Coordinators: Mr. Suraj Rajappan, Assist Prof - EC, Mr. Sreekanth R Sekar, Assist Prof –EEE

The event aims to develop the skills of students in the fields of machine learning, deep learning and artificial intelligence through various interactive projects, workshops and technical events completely managed and executed by students.

The event began with the welcome speech by the Joint Secretary of the AI Club, Hemanth Janesh of S7 CSE  followed by Lighting the Lamp and Vote of Thanks by Joint Secretary, Vinay Vincent of S5 EEE.  A technical session that followed was held on "Kidney Tumor Segmentation" by Sreehari G Varma, AI Club Secretary and  Presentation of the First Prize Winning Project at Bennett University "Echo-chambers based fake news detection"- Sreyas Namboodiri

 

 

Four Vidya students do one-month internship at Bennett University

Leadingindia.ai is a nationwide initiative by the Royal Academy of Engineering, UK under Newton Bhabha Fund on “AI and Deep Learning Skilling and Research”. University College (London), Brunel University (London) and Bennett University (India) are collaborators of the project. NVIDIA and AWS Educate, Videoken and Edvantics are industry partners. The initiative got further boost when AICTE saw great merit in the initiative and has recommended all of its approved institutions to associate with the project.

Four students from Vidya received an opportunity to take part in  a one month long Summer Internship under Leadingindia.ai at Bennett University, Greater Noida, UP. Among them three students Rahul Vincent, Sreehari G. varma and Sreyas Namboodiri were from the ECE Dept and one student Adharsh S from CSE Dept.

Activities during the internship

The first week of the internship was a workshop on “Deep Learning and How to Access DGX-1”. DGX-1 is a supercomputer consisting of 8 Nvidia Tesla V100 GPUs. For the next three weeks the students were divided into various groups of 4-5 members in each. Each of the groups were given a live world wide competitions project on various themes. The projects given to Vidya’s students were:

• Pneumothorax Segmentation- Rahul Vincent
• Kidney Tumor Segmentation- Sreehari G. Varma
• Echo-chambers based fake news detection- Sreyas Namboodiri
• Liver tumor segmentation- Adharsh S.

Great recognition to Vidya students

Vidya’s students won the following awards:

• Sreyas Namboodiri: His team won the First Prize and his paper was recognised for its novelty with plagiarism under 1%. The university have agreed to publish their paper in an international journal, which requires a one month procedure. Their project is so far the best in the field, in the entire world.
•  Rahul Vincent- Won an Appreciation Award for one of the best projects.

VCAIR team from Vidya completes one-month sabbatical at NVIDIA Bennett AI Research Centre

Two members of Vidya’s VCAIR team Mr Suraj Rajappan (AP, ECE Dept) and Mr Ravishankar S (AP, CES Dept) successfully completed a one-month long research sabbatical at NVIDIA Bennett Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence of Computer Science Engineering Department at Bennett University, Greater Noida, UP under the mentorship of Dr Hiren Kumar Thakur. The team from Vidya was in Bennett Univeristy for the sabbatical during the period from 1 July 2019 to 26 July 2019.

During  the sabbatical, they completed four machine learning projects at NVIDIA AI Research Lab. They could access the super computer NVIDIA DGX 100 for solving the problems that they were working on.   Also, during the sabbatical they participated in an online machine learning hackathon which saw the participation of more than 3,500 candidates. The team from Vidya could achieve an overall rank of 120 and the faculty members of Bennett University were very much impressed with their work.

VCAIR organises machine learning workshop by VisionCog

The Vidya Centre for AI and Research (VCAIR) in association with the AI Club of Vidya  organised a five-day internship workshop on machine learning with technical support from VisionCog during 5 – 9 August 2019.

VCAIR launches “Earn While You Learn” project

On 11 July 2019, Vidya Centre for AI & Research (VCAIR) organised a solemn ceremony to mark the launch of the “Earn While You Learn” project, a Vidya Academy-Datix Analytics (USA) project. The ceremony started at around 3 pm with a welcome speech by Mr Paul Chackola (Head of Training & Placement Dept). Dr Saji C B, Principal, gave the presidential address. The chief guest of the event, Er Nidhin Kadavil, Business and Data Analytics Lead, Datix Analytics, USA, formally launched the project by lighting the traditional lamp.

Mr Nidhin Kadavil gave an overview of the international collaborative projects and interacted with the students by giving insights into all the upcoming opportunities through this venture. Er G Mohanachandran, Executive Director, explained the significance of such initiatives and encouraged the academic community to contribute and get benefited. Dr V N Krishnachandran, Vice Principal, felicitated the gathering and wished the new venture a grand success. Er C K Jayaraj, Author Trustee, detailed how professionalism can be developed though the participation in such global initiatives. Er K P R Vijayan greeted the gathering and graced the occasion with his presence.

In collaboration with Datix Analytics, VCAIR had hosted a three-week Machine Learning Hackathon (World Class Challenge). All the members of  the winning team, RAINBOW SIX, have been placed in Datix Analytics. They were specially invited to the ceremony to share their experiences in participating in the Hackathon and their experiences in working with Datix Analytics.

The heads of various departments and many eminent faculty members marked their support with their presence. Dr Ramani Bai V (Prof and Head, CSE Dept) explained the journey of VCAIR since its establishing a partnership with leadingindia.ai through Bennett University, Delhi. She proposed the vote of thanks to all the stakeholders who contributed for the successful launch of the international collaborative projects with Datix Analytics, USA.

 

 

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VCAIR organises add-on course on Data Science Using Python

The Vidya Center for Artificial Intelligence and Research (VCAIR), in association with leadingindia.ai, organized a four-day fully hands-on workshop as an add-on course on “Introduction to Data Science Using Python” during 10 – 13 July 2019.

The add-on course was organised with the goal equipping the students with the latest technology in data science. The course was designed specifically for B Tech (CSE) students of the third semester. Important topics like data preprocessing, data visualization, data cleaning and model development, which form the core of Data Science, were covered deeply. The course was introduced by Dr Ramani Bai V (Prof and Head, CSE Dept). The classes of the course were taken by Mr Nakulraj K R (AP, CSE Dept) and Mr Sreekanth R Shekar (AP, EEE Dept). About 60 students attended the course.

The participants of the course learned how a data scientist worked and understood the mathematical and logical principle of different classification and regression models. The course laid a foundation for exploring an important technology and this foundation would help the students to harvest the massive amount of job and research opportunities arising this new technology domain.

 

 

“DATIX HACKATHON” Award Ceremony

The Vidya Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Research (V-CAIR),  in collaboration with Datix Analytics a US based company, had hosted a Hackathon on Machine Learning (ML), called “Datix Hackathon”, for students of Vidya during 25 March – 23 April 2019. The Hackathon challenge was well taken by students of Vidya and they found it to be a rich learning experience.

The prize distribution ceremony of the Hackathon was held on 2 May 2019 at the College Auditorium. The programme began at 3.30 pm with a welcome addresses by Dr Ramani Bai V (Prof and Head, CSE Dept). Mr Nakulraj K R, Event Coordinator and Mr Ravishankar S, Technical Coordinator, were also present.

Mr Nidhin Kadavil, Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing Lead, Datix Analytics, briefed the audience about the objectives of the collaboration of Datix Analytics with Vidya and how it would be beneficial to the student community at Vidya. Mr Travis Nixon, Data Scientist and AI Consultant, Datix Analytics, who was the architect of the world class Machine Learning Hackathon,  announced names of the winners of the Hackathon.

 

 

VCAIR hosts Datix Machine Learning Hackathon

VCAIR (Vidya Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Research) is hosting a Hackathon on Machine Learning (ML) exclusively for the students of Vidya, in collaboration with Datix Analytics, a US based company. The Hackathon challenge has been well taken by the Vidya students and they have found it to be a rich learning experience.

The background

Mr Travis Nixon, Data Scientist and AI consultant and Mr Nidhin Kadavil, Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing Lead, Datix Analytics, are the main sources of this collaboration. The sole purpose of this collaboration is to enhance skill sets of members of Vidya academic community in the field of ML and provide opportunities for students to “earn while they learn”. The idea of conducting the Machine Leaning Hackathon has been evolved during the interaction of Datix with VCAIR as Datix Analytics wanted to examine the understanding level and the working capacity of the students in ML and Data Science.

The Hackathon was announced during the introductory webinar conducted by Mr. Travis Nixon on 20 March 2019 on the topic ” AI Today and Tomorrow”  which had a participation of 700+ students and faculty members.

Activities:

The following activities have been completed as part of the Datix Hackathon:

1. Students Registration at VCAIR (25 March 2019): Students were allowed to register as group of 5 (max) for the Hackathon competition. A preliminary filtration process had to be applied to filter the best 12 teams for Hackathon, out of the 28 team registrations.
2. Premier and Secondary Hackathons: Mr Tavis Nixon wanted to encourage and provide opportunity to all the registered teams. Hence Datix has generously extended secondary Hackathon for the reset of 16 teams. Six faculty sponsors were identified from the college as faculty sponsors for the Premier and Secondary teams to assist them in this challenge.
3. Webinar on Datix Hackathon Technology Review (29 March 2019): Mr Nidhin Kadavil introduced Mr Travis Nixon to all the participants and briefed the Datix Hackathon. Mr Travis hosted a webinar on Datix Hackathon Technology Review in which he explored the ML toolkits and Azure platform for carrying out the Hackathan Challenge. The participants were encouraged to ask questions and Mr Travis clarified their doubts regarding this challenge.
4. Problem Statement & Dataset released, Official beginning of the challenge (1 April 2019): A Premier Machine Learning Hackathon was started for selected 12 teams with a challenge of a world class ML question which is the same as that given in the recruitment process done by Microsoft for recruiting their Data Scientists. A time duration of 2 weeks from April 1 to April 14 was provided for the teams to complete the challenge. In the similar fashion, a secondary hackathon was conducted for the rest of 16 teams who had registered for the challenge with a slighter less hard question during the same duration.
5. Slack Channels & Interactions: An exclusive slack channel for every individual team inside the forums for Primary and Secondary Hackathons was created by the faculty coordinator Mr Nakulraj K R (AP, CSE Dept) and Mr Travis Nixon, Mr Nidhin Kadavil, Dr Ramani Bai V (Prof and Head, CSE Dept) and Mr  Ravishankar S (AP, CSE Dept) were added in each channel to interact with the team during their progress throughout the challenge. Mr Travis Nixon was carefully observing the communications at very channel, providing possible directions and answering the queries posted by the teams. Mr Ravishankar S was helping the students and assisting them in handling the Azure Accounts and Cloud.
6. Webinar for Interaction with Datix (8 April 2019): Mr Travis Nixon hosted webinar to answer any questions that participants have. He clarified the doubts and answered questions raised by the participants. During the one hour interaction, students were encouraged to ask any trivial questions which would help them to meet the Hacakathon challenge.
7. Hands-on Session on Building Machine Learning Models using scikit learn (11 April 2019): During the internal meetings and interactions with the teams participating in Hackathon (especially in the secondary), VCAIR team understood that the need of some teams to get the basic exposure to Machine Learning Techniques and Tools. Mr Ravishankar S has voluntarily offered a three hours hands-on session from 3.30pm to 6.30pm on Building Machine Learning Models using scikit learn through which the students gained the basic concepts and confidence in dealing with the Hackathon challenge.
8. Submission on April 14, 11:59 PM EST: All teams who have completed their tasks were asked to submit their code in .py file along with the presentation (.ppt file). Datix accepted 10 premier and 3 secondary submissions upto the deadline.
9. Presentations & Evaluations (April 16 – April 23, 2019): Mr Travis has created an exclusive Zoom meeting id for every individual team and total of 13 presentations were conducted in the Zoom for premier and secondary Hackathon competitions during 16 – 23, April 2019. Mr Travis Nixon, Mr Nidhin Kadavil, Dr Ramani Bai V and Mr Nakulraj K R were present during all the presentation. Mr Travis has shown exceptionally high attention in evaluating each and every presentation. He was also enlightening the students with the concepts and practical perspective of the challenge. Also he was encouraging the students and boosting up their morale during the presentation. Mr Nidhin focused on the business solution offered by the teams over the challenge. The students gained the rich learning experience throughout the exercise which no university can taught.
10. Datix Webinar and Winners Awarding Ceremony (2 May 2019): The Datix finishing webinar for the Hacakthon competitions and Winners awarding ceremony is conducted on 2 May 2019.

Students showed their hard work and team spirit throughout the challenge and at the same time offered helping hands to the lower ones. Ten teams of premier Hackathon and 3 teams of secondary Hackathon were able to complete the challenge within the deadline. Regardless of their busy academic schedules and exams many teams showed high technical and business skills during the challenge and presentations. Datix team was impressed and gave high appreciations to some teams. Mr Travis stayed positive throughout all the presentations and provided encouraging feedbacks to all teams presented.

Students addressed the Hackathon as a great challenging experience and expressed their gratitude towards Datix team and VCAIR for providing such a world class opportunity.

Prizes for winners

The following prizes will be distributed for Primary Hackathon:

• 1 st Prize: 14,000 INR
• Runner Up: 5,000 INR
• Runner Up: 5,000 INR
• Most creative Approach: 5,000 INR
• And 3 prizes total of 5,000 INR

CSE faculty conducts hands-on session on building machine learning models    

As a curtain-raiser for the Datix Hackathon on Machine Learning, Mr Ravishankar S (AP, CSE Dept) organised a hands-on session on Machine Learning (ML) and the software tools for implementing it on 11 April 2019. The session was conducted in the Advanced Computer Lab and as many as 23 students attended the session. The classes started off with an introduction to machine learning and the basic concepts which revolve around it.

The participants were introduced to the different types of ML problems. They were also taught what all software packages were needed for implementing the ML algorithms. Mr Ravishankar demonstrated the usage of the scikit-learn package, a Python based ML library, with examples of linear regression, logistic regression, support vector machine, decision tree, etc models.

US expert holds webinar on “AI Today and Tomorrow” for students and faculty of Vidya

Vidya International Charitable Trust (VICT) has facilitated a greatly valued US Industry Collaboration with VCAIR (Vidya Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Research) on AI & API products through Mr Nidhin Kadavil, Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing Lead, and Mr Travis Nixon, Data Scientist & AI Consultant. Mr Nidhin Kadavil is the initiator and the main source of this collaboration. To introduce the collaborative project works, Mr Travis Nixon offered a webinar on the topic “AI Today and Tomorrow”. VCAIR hosted the webinar live over both the Vidya campuses at Thrissur and Kilimanoor on 20 March 2019 at 4.30pm IST for 700+ participants.

Mr Travis provided a clear introduction about what is AI and areas where it could be enforced which include education, health and business. A polling scheme was included in this session where the participants voted for the answers to questions. Mr Travis was patient enough to answer the students’ enquires about the AI field in today’s world. Also he explained about two case studies  that included NETFLIX and BLOCK BUSTER. His presentation depicted an idea of how fast AI is growing. Those students who are creative and who have good knowledge in AI and Machine Learning can definitely look for AI projects. He has also discussed about a few projects on which they were working.

Mr Travis also highlighted their collaborative handshake with the institution in near future and made the first announcement for a Datix Hackathon contest which would begin on 5  March 2019. The Hackathon contest aims at scrutinizing and finding the best teams that can take the projects from Datix. The winners will be awarded with cash price.

Around 700+ students and faculty members form various departments in both the campuses participated in the interactive webinar. The arrangements were provided for both common display as well as one-on one interaction.  The students were inspired by the clear and informative session of Mr Travis and also motivated to register for the upcoming Hackathon.

 

VCAIR organizes technical session on self-driving cars

 

Vidya Center for Artificial Intelligence and Research (VCAIR) organized a technical session on “Self-Driving Cars” by Robotics and Cognitive Systems in TATA Consultancy Services (TCS) on 31 January 2019 at Advanced Computing Lab. Dr Ramani Bai V (Prof and Head, CSE Dept) gave the welcome address. Dr Saji C B (Principal, VAST) delivered the presidential address. Er G Mohanachandran (Executive Director, VICT) officially inaugurated the function by lighting the traditional lamp and delivered the inaugural address. Mr Jaiju Jacob, resource person from TCS who is currently working as a platform architect for TCS Robotics team, offered an introduction about the session. Mr Sarath Peter (AI Club Member, VCAIR) delivered vote of thanks.

The session gave the attendees an insight into the different stages of development involved in self-driving cars. Concepts of robotic operating systems and connected cars were introduced in the session. The session also showed the self-driving projects implemented in Kerala

 

VCAIR organizes 3-day NVIDIA Workshop on “AI & Deep Learning”         

 

The Vidya Center for Artificial Intelligence and Research (VCAIR) organised a three-day NVIDIA-workshop on “Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning” during 12 – 14 January 2019. The worshop had been sponsored by leadiningindia.ai.

 

Background

VCAIR is a research forum formed to promote the Vidya Zonal Lead Partnership with leadingindia.ai in association with NVIDIA-Bennett Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence which is a nation-wide initiative on AI Skilling and Research. Vision of VCAIR is progress through research and education in Artificial Intelligence and thereby transform the nation. It aims to develop the skills of the next generation of professionala in artificial intelligence. With this mission, VCAIR has been conducting a series of seminars, FDPs and workshops to promote AI and Deep learning related activities.

This workshop was also the part of such an activity. The Workshop was aimed to bring professionals, researchers, faculty members, experts and students together on a single platform to discuss and put into practice the Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning and its real life applications. The main objective of the Workshop was to provide fundamental and practical knowledge in these latest research fields so as to enable participants to solve real world problems. The workshop was targeted at the faculty members and students of Thrissur and Kilimanoor campuses of Vidya.

Inaugural ceremony

The inaugural ceremony of the programme was held on 12 January 2019 at 10.00 am at Central Computing Lab, Decennial Block. Dr Ramani Bai V (Prof and Head,  CSE Dept, Convener VCAIR) welcomed the gathering with a gratitude note to Dr Deepak Garg, Director, leadiningindia.ai and Director, NVIDIA-Bennett Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence for offering a much valued NVIDIA workshop to Vidya campus. Dr Saji C B (Principal, VAST) delivered the presidential address. Er P K Asokan, Chief Patron, VICT, officially inaugurated the function by lighting the traditional lamp and gave the inaugural address. Resource persons for the workshop were Dr Suneet Kumar Gupta and Dr Anubhav Patrick from Bennett University School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Dr Suneet Kumar Gupta offered a brief introduction about the workshop. Dr. Sudha Balagopalan (Dean Academics, VAST) felicitated the occasion. Mr Ravishankar S (Workshop Coordinator) delivered vote of thanks.

Resource persons

Dr. Suneet Kumar Gupta is currently working as Assistant Professor at Bennett University School of Engineering & Applied Sciences. His research interests include Wireless Sensor Networks, Natural Languages Processing and Internet of Things. He received his Ph.D degree from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Dhanbad. He has published many research papers in the domains of AI. Dr. Anubhav Patrick is a Ph.D scholar under supervision of Dr Deepak Garg and deep learning instructor at Bennett University. His research interests include Deep Learning and Neural Networks and has published research papers in these areas.

Activities

First day of the Workshop started with foundations and terminology of deep learning. Second session started with machine learning basics. The third Session was about designing and optimizing neural network model which was followed by a session on basics of python language with Microsoft Azure framework.

Second day started with convolution neural network and its applications. The second session was about recurrent neural network which was followed by advanced learning topics and its practical sessions on Microsoft Azure framework.

Assessment test on the presented topics was conducted on third day followed by NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute hands-on labs. All the participants who completed the course on fundamentals of deep learning for computer vision on NVIDIA Cloud were awarded with the online certificates. Based on the assessment test the first and second positions were declared and presented to Mr Sreekanth R Shekar, Mr Bejoy B J and Ms Anamika Murali.

The workshop was concluded with a feedback session in the presence of Dr Sudha Balagopalan, Dr Ramani Bai V, Dr Suneet Kumar Gupta and Mr Anubhav Patrick. All the participants found inspired and gained confidence to use AI and Deep learning technologies for the higher level problems in their respective domains. All participants gave sincere feedback and expressed their gratitude to leadiningindia.ai initiative and the resource persons for such a high-valued workshop.

 

                                                      

 

VCAIR organizes 5-day STC on Foundations of Artificial Neural Networks   

 

Vidya Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Research (VCAIR) organized a five-day Short Term Course (STC) on “Theoretical Foundations of Artificial Neural Networks” during 1 – 5 January 2019. The STC was aimed to bring professionals, researchers, faculty members, experts and students together on a single platform to discuss the theoretical foundations of artificial neural networks and its real life applications. The programme was targeted at faculty members from AICTE approved engineering colleges across Kerala.

The inaugural ceremony of the programme was held on 1 January 2019 at the Advanced Computer Lab in the College. Dr Ramani Bai V (Prof and Head, CSE Dept) gave the welcome address. Dr Saji C B (Principal, VAST) delivered the presidential address. Mr Anil Kumar S, Chief Guest of the occasion and the resource person for the STC, officially inaugurated the Course by lighting the traditional lamp. Er G Mohanachandran (Executive Director, VICT) and Dr V N Krishna Chandran (Vice Principal, VAST) felicitated the occasion. Mr Suraj Rajappan (AP, ECE Dept) delivered vote of thanks.

Mr Anil Kumar S is currently pursuing PhD in IIT Madras. He has completed M Tech from NIT Calicut with Gold Medal in the year 2015 and B Tech from Cochin University College of Engineering (CUSAT). He received Best Teacher Award in the year 2007 at RIT Pampady. His areas of interest include theoretical computer science, algorithm analysis, real and complex analysis, artificial neural networks, digital image processing etc. He had conducted numerous FDPs in areas like Theory of Computation and Introduction to Algorithms in various colleges. This is the third time Vidya is conducting a STC under his expertise.

 

CSE faculty members train to launch courses under Advanced Skill Development Center

 

 

Dr Ramani Bai V (Prof and Head, CSE Dept) and Mr Ravishankar S (AP, CSE Dept) attended a five-day Trainers’ Training Programme on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Tools held at Maria Rani Center, Thiruvananthapurm, during 17 – 22 December 2018. The training programme included practical sessions also. The programme was targeted at the prospective trainers of the various Advanced Skill Development Centers (ASDC) in Kerala.
The training sessions were handled by Dr Ram Prasad, founder of  VisionCog, an organization focused  on education and research in the domains of computing and artificial intelligence. He received his Ph.D degree in Computer Science and Telecommunication Engineering from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.
Hands-on sessions included introductions to Scientific Python, Scikit-learn, regression analysis and ANOVA, regularization and parametric learning, support vector machines, decision trees, ensemble learning, data clustering, and dimensionality reduction

 

V-CAIR Student Club organizes technical talks on deep learning and AI by experts from TCS

 

The AI Student Club functioning under V-CAIR (Vidya Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Research), jointly with CSE Department Association, organised a Technical Session on “Neural Networks and Deep Learning” on 22 November 2018 from 11 am to 1 pm in Advanced Computer Lab. The session was handled by Ms Sheetal and Mr Lokesh from Tata Consultancy Services. The session was attended by selected MTech (CSE) and BTech (CSE) students, who were currently doing projects in neural network area. Ms Sheetal explained the possibilities and project experiences in TCS on neural network models used for text based application data. Mr Lokesh explained the possibilities and limitations of building and training models. Also the talks included parts of AI, its genres, current stage of research and development, the position in future and more. After the formal session students shared their ideas and queried their doubts.

 

CCE and VCAIR inauguration

 

   

Background

The setting up of the Centre for Continuing Education (CCE) and the Vidya Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Research (VCAIR) were two novel initiatives that Vidya had witnessed in the recent past. The former has been visualized as the agency for coordinating all activities relating to teaching and learning beyond curriculum while the latter has been visualised as the springboard for carrying out advanced research in cutting edge technologies related to artificial intelligence. The two Centres have been functioning effectively for some time and they were waiting for an auspicious moment for formal inauguration. The auspicious moment came on 16 November 2018.

Inauguration

The two centres, VCAIR and CCE, were formally inaugurated on 16 November 2018 by the chief guest of the occasion Dr Sobhan C B, Dean – Alumni Affairs and International Relations, School of NanoScience & Technology, NIT Calicut.

Dr Ramani Bai V (Head – VCAIR and Head of CSE Dept) welcomed the gathering. The president of the function, Principal Dr Saji C B, inspired the students by elaborating how these two centres would help in the betterment of the learning environment in Vidya.

Dr Sobhan C B inaugurated the centres by lighting the traditional lamp. He also released the logo of VCAIR. In his address Dr Sobhan described the functioning of VCAIR and CCE. He motivated the students to explore the opportunities in international institutions and to develop the ability to communicate with research communities. Also he elaborated on the functioning of Nano-Science and Technology at NIT, Calicut.

 

Er G Mohanachandran Executive Director, Vidya International Charitable Trust, distributed the first set of certificates to MCA students who had completed a course under CCE. He addressed the students about the vision of forming these two centres and how they got into the present structure. He also encouraged students and academic community to join and grow with VCAIR and CCE. Vice Principal and the advisor of CCE, Dr V N Krishnachandran, explained how the personalized certificates for the courses completed under CCE were designed.

Dr Sudha Balagopalan, Dean-Academics, conveyed three messages: first was the appeal to the students to listen to the lectures as the teachers took much efforts for delivering the courses for them; second message was to utilize the programs and opportunities provided by VCAIR and CCE and third was to be the messengers of this ceremony that they should pass on the details of this programs and opportunities provided by the centres to their classmates so that the student community get benefited.

The convener of CCE, Dr Deepa Mohan thanked the gathering for their participation on the auspicious occasion of the inauguration of CCE and VCAIR and the cooperation rendered by the coordinators.

Logo contest for AI student Club

 

 

A logo contest for AI student club was conducted on November 14th, 2018, with a cash prize of Rs. 2000. Participants were allowed to submit any number of entries, but should be submitted before 6 pm, same day. Around 20 entries were received from which a panel of judges including V-CAIR head and Principal of the institution selected the winner. The logo was unveiled and cash award was given away on 16th November, 2018, during the Inauguration of V-CAIR.

Invited talk on “How Artificial Intelligence is influencing Robotics & IoT.”

As part of the outreach activities of Vidya Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (VCAIR), Mr. Ramesh C.R, Asst. Professor, Department of ECE, delivered one-hour introductory talk on “How Artificial  Intelligence is influencing Robotics & IoT.”, at IETE Kochi Centre, on IETE Foundation Day (10th November 2018)

Four students complete online course in python offered by MIT

 

Four students of the S1 B Tech (CSE A) batch – Aakash K Dileep, Abhijith Sheheer, Abhiram C Devanand and Vinay Sankar – have secured certificates of successful course completion from MIT on completing the online course “6.00.1x Introduction to Computer Science and Programming using Python” offered through the edX platform. They completed the course utilising the discount coupons offered to the faculty and students of Vidya on account of Vidya becoming a partner of the  leadingindia.ai  initiative.

 

VCAIR organises industry visit and FDP on AI and ML at TCS, Cochin

 

   

  

A team of faculty members of the College, under the auspices of the VCAIR (Vidya Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Research), conducted an industry visit to the Artificial Intelligence Lab of Tata Consultancy Service (TCS), Cochin, on 26 October 2018. As part of the visit, TCS personnel organised a one-day Faculty Development Programme (FDP) on “Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning” for the benefit of the visitors. The FDP was aimed at providing opportunities to faculty members, research scholars and post-graduate students for creating research aptitude in the field of artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning.

The team consisted of Dr Ramani Bai V (Head-VCAIR and Head, CSE Dept), Dr Swapna Kumar S (Head, ECE Dept), the VCAIR research group members Mr Ravishankar S, Mr Nakulraj K R, Mr Sreekanth R Shekar, the VCAIR faculty club member Ms Jasna S B, the faculty members Ms Salitha K K, Ms Anooja V S, Mr Krishna Kumar M, Ms Neeraja A Poduval, Mr Vishnu Rach K R, Ms Baby K A and the P G scholars Ms Arya R, Mr Atul Varkey Cherian, Ms Aarthy Rajan, Ms Varadhambika, Ms Anusha A A and Ms Anjali.

In the FDP, Mr Rajeev Azhuvath (Digital Consultant at TCS) handled the morning session. He provided some practical insights to AI technologies along with different AI use cases. The second session was handled by Mr Ratheesh A (AI Developer) and Ms Deepa. Topics like classification, regression, clustering and deep learning were discussed. They also dealt with CNN for classification and object detection. They also showcased real-time demonstration of Tiny Yolo, Alexa Voice, Open vino : SSD-VGG16 with usual caffe and Openvino.

  VCAIR team visits school at Aryampadam as an outreach activity

 

As a part of the outreach activity of Vidya Center for Artificial Intelligence Research (VCAIR), a team of two faculty members of the CSE Dept of the College visited the Sarvodayam Vocational Higher Secondary School, Aryampadam, on 16 October 2018. Mr  Jayakumar T V (AP, CSE Dept), who was a member of the team, gave an introductory talk on Artificial Intelligence and Mr Ravishankar S (AP, CSE Dept), the other member of the team, gave an introduction to Python programming. As many as 58 students from classes XI and XII of the School attended the interactive session. 

 A technical session on artificial intelligence and machine learning

 

 

The College, along with IEEE PES (Power and Energy Society) Student Branch Chapter, College of Engineering, Karunagappally, conducted an IEEE technical session, in association with V-CAIR, at Advanced Computing Lab on 15 October 2018. Dr Sudha Balagopalan, Dean–Academics, welcomed the participants. Dr Saji C B, Principal, delivered the presidential address. Felicitations were offered by Dr Ramani Bai V, Prof and Head of CSE Dept and Head of V-CAIR.

The inaugural ceremony was followed by a technical session on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

A session on “Introduction to AI and ML: Tools and Technologies” was handled by Dr Ramani Bai V and Mr Ravishankar. A session on “AI in Power Systems” was handled by Dr Sudha Balagopalan. A session on IEEE and WIPS (Women In Power Summit), was handled by the students from College of Engineering, Karunagappally.

The session concluded around 2 pm with a group photo session. 

 

   TCS Technical Session on “Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning"

With much hopes and expectations, the nascent Vidya Centre of Artificial Intelligence and Research (V-CAIR) was formally inaugurated by Mr Rajeev M Azhuvath, Digital Consultant, TCS, in a solemn function held in the College Auditorium on 19 September 2018. Mr Ratheesh, AI Developer, TCS, was also present on the occasion. It was an auspicious moment that was blessed with the presence of Executive Director Er G Mohanachandran, Principal Dr Saji C B, Dean-Academics Dr Sudha Balagopalan and Vice Principal Dr V N Krishnachandran. Head of CSE Department Dr Ramani Bai V, faculty and staff members and the students of CSE Dept were also present to witness the proceedings.

The program began with a welcome address by Dr Ramani Bai followed by presidential address by Principal. The V-CAIR was inaugurated by lighting the lamp of knowledge and by launching the V-CAIR website. To add to the occasion, lecture notes on machine learning prepared by Dr V N Krishnachandran was published by Mr Rajeev Azhuvath in the V-CAIR website. As part of the inaugural programme, there was a technical session which was handled by Mr Rajeev M Azhuvath and Mr Ratheesh A. They talked about Artificial Intelligence and some industrial use cases of AI. An introduction on Rasberry PI and a live demo on object detection were also held. Both the sessions were interactive and students were enriched with knowledge and exposure to the world of machine learning. The students were able to get first-hand information about the industrial techniques and thereby get exposure to current industrial technology in the field of machine learning.

Talk on image processing and machine learning techniques in industry

 

 

A technical session on “Image processing and Machine Learning Techniques in Industry” was organized by IIIC of Department of CSE under the banner of CSI, on 14 September 2018. The resource person was Ms Swedha Balasubramanian, Text Mining Specialist at BigTapps Analytics, Chennai. Dr Ramani Bai V, Head of CSE Dept, welcomed the gathering, Dr Saji C B, Principal, addressed the gathering. The talk covered various topics on deep learning techniques and tools used in the industry. The resource person also gave an overview on the setting up of Amazon cloud for deep learning. The M Tech students and the final year B Tech students of the Dept attended the session. The program concluded at 12.30 PM with the vote of thanks by Ms Beena M V (AP, CSE DEpt).

 

Vidya on the path of progress through machine learning

 

Vidya is scaling greater heights. With much hopes and expectations, the nascent Vidya Centre of Artificial Intelligence and Research (V-CAIR) was formally inaugurated by Mr Rajeev M Azhuvath, Digital Consultant, TCS, in a solemn function held in the College Auditorium on 19 September 2018. Mr Ratheesh, AI Developer, TCS, was also present on the occasion. It was an auspicious moment that was blessed with the presence of Executive Director Er G Mohanachandran, Principal Dr Saji C B, Dean-Academics Dr Sudha Balagopalan and Vice Principal Dr V N Krishnachandran. Head of CSE Department Dr Ramani Bai V, faculty and staff members and the students of CSE Dept were also present to witness the proceedings.

The program began with a welcome address by Dr Ramani Bai followed by presidential address by Principal. The V-CAIR was inaugurated by lighting the lamp of knowledge and by launching the V-CAIR website. To add to the occasion, lecture notes on machine learning prepared by Dr V N Krishnachandran was published by Mr Rajeev Azhuvath in the V-CAIR website.

As part of the inaugural programme, there was a technical session which was handled by Mr Rajeev M Azhuvath and Mr Ratheesh A. They talked about Artificial Intelligence and some industrial use cases of AI. An introduction on Rasberry PI and a live demo on object detection were also held. Both the sessions were interactive and students were enriched with knowledge and exposure to the world of machine learning. The students were able to get first hand information about the industrial techniques and thereby get exposure to current industrial technology in the field of machine learning.

 

First Formal Meeting of V-CAIR

 

 

   First formal meeting of Vidya Centre of Artificial Inntelligence and research (V-CAIR) was conducted on 30/05/2018. All administrators, advisors and reviewers annd research group members of V-CAIR attended the meeting. Dr.Ramani Bai V, HOD, CSE and Head of V-CAIR addressed the meeting and shared the objectives and goals of V-CAIR.

1.  LECTURE NOTES IN MACHINE LEARNING - Dr V N Krishnachandran, Vice Principal, VAST
2. Videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAFrzhAJdP95njz-EMrnekQ
3. Blog: https://medium.com/@aiclubvast
4. Github: https://github.com/dravidshankar 

 

2018-2019 Academic Projects

1. CANCER CELL DETECTION & SEGMENTATION
2. PREDICTING STUDENT PERFORMANCE USING DEEP NEURAL NETWORK
3. ROVER (SPACE TECHNOLOGY)
4. ESSAY GRADING SYSTEM
5. AI BASED CHAT-BOT SYSTEM
6. STUDENT JOB PREDICTION
7. NETWORK INTRUSION TECHNIQUE
8. TRAVEL ROUTE SUGGESTION BASED ON PATTERN &TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES
9. AI STUDENT ASSISTANT
10. TUMOR DETECTION FROM MRI
11. WASTE CLASSIFICATION
12. CUSTOMER CLASSIFICATION BASED ON HISTORICAL PURCHASED DATA
13. DISASTER PREDICTION
14. TEXT TO SPEECH CONVERSION
15. LIBRARY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
16. IMAGE ORIENTED ONLINE SHOPPING
17. FAKE NEWS DETECTION SYSTEM
18. COLLEGE ENQUIRY CHAT-BOT
19. GESTURE RECOGNITION FOR COMPUTER INTERFACING
20. SMART PARKING USING IoT & MACHINE LEARNING
21. PLANT DISEASE DETECTION
22. BIRD REPELLENT SYSTEM
23. DISEASE INFERENCE FROM HEALTH RELATED QUESTION VIA DEEP LEARNING
24. EYE WINK DETECTION USING EEG SIGNALS
25. ACTION RECOGNITION USING DEEP LEARNING
26. FACE RECOGNITION BASED ATTENDENCE SYSTEM USING DEEP LEARNING
27. PEDESTRIAN DETECTION USING DEEP LEARNING
28. IMAGE CAPTIONING USING DEEP LEARNING
29. SMART FLOOD DISASTER PREDICTION SYSTEM USING IoT AND NEURAL NETWORK
30. INDUCING DISTANT SUPERVISION IN SUGGESTION MINING THROUGH PART-OF-SPEECH EMBEDDINGS
31. PLANT IDENTIFICATION USING LEAF CLASSIFICATION
32. FACT CHECKING IN COMMUNITY QUESTION ANSWERING FORUMS
33. WEED DETECTION USING DEEP LEARNING
34. HEART DISEASE DIAGNOSIS USING DATA MINING TECHNIQUE
35. BRAIN TUMOR DETECTION AND CLASSIFICATION USING DEEP LEARNING
36. ROAD DAMAGE DETECTION USING DNN WITH IMAGES
37. LARGE SCALE HIERARCHICAL TEXT CLASSIFICATION USING DEEP GRAPH-CNN
38. PERSONALIZED TREATMENT RECOMMENDER SYSTEM
39. DIABETIC RETINOPATHY DETECTION USING DEEP LEARNING