The Department of Nanotechnology, NEHU organised a two-day national conference on ‘Smart Materials for Future Technology which concluded here today.
The conference was attended by resource persons, scientists, teachers and scholars from reputed institutes of the country.
NEHU vice chancellor Prof. Prabha Shankar Shukla and Prof. S. Dorendrojit Singh from Manipur University were the guests at the conference.
Shukla spoke about the advantages of nanotechnology. “With every technological advancement and innovation, we throw away the defunct version to make way for the newer, lighter model — contributing to the rising waste and pollution levels. In our quest to make our own lives easier through novel inventions, we paradoxically make it a little more complicated,” he said.
He also mentioned that nanotechnology is being used and applied in almost every field, be it engineering or material science, agriculture or pharmacology. It is an emerging field and students need to be encouraged to opt for such multidisciplinary course. He said sensitisation is required so that the young minds know about it and in turn inculcate interests in pursuing higher studies and research in the field of nanotechnology.
Nanotechnology being a multidisciplinary field also serves the purpose of New Education Policy 2020, Shukla said and informed that students from different fields like Physics, Chemistry, Biotechnology, Biochemistry and Agriculture can take this course in addition to students of different engineering fields. Basic science needs to be accompanied by technology so as to produce good research and probably good patents and start-ups, he added.
Convenor of the conference, Dr. L. Robindro Singh gave a detailed report about the proceedings of the conference and also spoke about the benefits of Nanotechnology and Material Science. He exhorted that youth of the North East region especially Meghalaya should be encouraged to opt for this course as it has a wide array of prospects and that many of the alumni of Department of Nanotechnology, NEHU are either working in reputed institutes like IITs and NITs or are pursuing higher studies in countries like Taiwan, Germany and South Africa.
Prof. Hussein, Dean of School of Technology congratulated the organisers of the conference and said that Material Science is the mother of all engineering. Citing examples, he mentioned that there were days when spectacles used to be very heavy, however with the advances and research in material science, the spectacles have become ultra light without the quality being compromised. Therefore, it is the need of hour that students engage in research which can produce smart materials and nanotechnology is one field which will be helpful in getting those results, he added.
