Today`s day turned out to be really epitome of the conclave.
Day was kicked off by state of the art topic "Intrusion Detection and Security Audit" lecture by Prof. Satish Chandra,General Manager of the Mitretek. Corporation, Washington, USA. It was really useful and precise talk as far as current security concerns are expressed by Intelligence Agencies about the increasing amount of white collar professionals being deployed by terrorists organizations.
Disgruntled employees can often be the reason for the information leak outside. The expenditure on biometric operations may be more but circumstances are that password based security system are no more reliable because sophisticated techniques of hacking are known to large number of people.
The smart thing about presentation was it addressed the core concern of networking professionals. The real time detection of intrusion of the network systems is going to be serious issue in coming future. Therefore India must pay attention as lot of E-governance initiatives are going to be in coming years.
Then came the great man Raj Reddy, recipient of Padma Bhushan, who is working in Artificial Intelligence for last forty years. He cited three definitions of the great streams of science-engineering.
Engineering, he said, is enhancement of human`s skills to do things more effectively. Medicine, he explained, is a science to repair and develop abilities of human body and Computer Science is program or machine scaling up the mental ability to analyze and interpret the research data and processes.
He traced the evolution of human computer interaction birth of internet and search engines, conceptual philosophy of search engines, the challenges ahead of Artificial Intelligence. He referred to defined term of intelligence for machines as: To learn from experiences, exhibiting adaptations, goal oriented, vast amount of knowledge with self awareness and should be able to operate in real time.
Then came the real iconic lecture of Harold Kroto. Iconic in a sense he really set the benchmarks in front of audience, how one should communicate to hundreds of audience for two hours without a break about a complex issue of Carbon 60 means Bucky ball, his invention for which he got Nobel in 1996.
His main focus was on Science and Sustainability. He came, he talked, he conqured:
Confuscious said, "I seek not to know the answer but to understand the
question." He deliberated on what actually scientific method is...by
above quotation. "A scientist always holds on the opinions as long as
he/she is sure about it.But in the process he/she always knows not be
too sure about that."
Expressing concern about the various controversies related to newest forms of technology, he said, "These days, sarcastically enough, Knowledge is not guarantee for good decisions being made across the world. Sometimes guided ignorance of the communities and people like us give excuse to power players to move towards unscientific/irrational misadventure either to ban some kind of research or to continue illegitimate research."
When I asked him, does the debate surrounding nanotechnology, biotechnology including the negative implications of it on society is going in the right direction or not, he opened up wider angle of the human intervention in the scientific progress. He said that at one age of the history there are vested interests who sought the ban on Chemistry because it produces hazardous chemicals. This is irrespective Chemistry is equally responsible making our life much more livable than ever before. On the same lines, he asserted nano-bio technologies will create some hazard during the growth of that science. But we should not take it as a learning experience because we cannot afford this risk. What we can do is to have good people who carry foresight studies regarding these technologies so as to prevent the risk in premature time."
Number of questions were thrown at Korto regarding faith, luck, dream, belief, irrationality. He explained in splendid terms what exactly rationality is recalling Bertand Russel; 'Is man (and woman of course!) rational? I am still searching for the evidence..."
He has such a subtle humor and low melting point by which he gets easily amalgamated with the audience that you forget that he is teaching you and you are actually probing him to explain the things from your level of understanding. That is I think secret of science communication.
He was relentless, spontaneous and just like kid; talking with naughty analogies of the research realities to common day life and behavioral patterns of diverse scientists. "The evidence of the argument is the key to the progress of scientific thought, no doubt about that. This thought of Russel forms the ability to go ahead on research work, ideally."
"I really do not know research is enjoyable or not. It takes vast degree of hard work and unstoppable perseverance. Research is something more than mere enjoyment. We should be multidimensional to think beyond one dimensional phenomenon of enjoyment."
We were, in old days, were taking photographs, developing and printing those by mechanical ways. That gave us the space to understand the science behind it. Today in the world of convergence, everything is digitized and we rarely ask the questions to understand the micro processes of any system. The challenge in front of us is how to sustain the curiosity in young mind in time of sophisticated technologies so that we can unravel the step by step building blocks (even though complex by nature)of any machine or invention.
Dr. Kroto finally said, Science and research is all about fresh approach, young mind and ability to question the icons, role models, experts and establishment." He heralded all the INSPIRE Fellows and other young students to be aware that they are the real future of science. Whatever transformation is going to happen in science is to be done by these apparently innocent but inherently very creative. non obvious minds."
I cannot resist myself from humming the 1985 Michael Jackson and others` item:
We are the world
There comes a time when we heed a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
And its time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all
We cant go on pretending day by day
That someone, somewhere will soon make a change
We are all part of gods great big family
And the truth, you know, love is all we need
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So lets start giving
Theres a choice were making
Were saving our own lives
Its true well make a better day
Just you and me
Send them your heart
So theyll know that someone cares
And their lives will be stronger and free
As God has shown us by turning stones to bread
So we all must lend a helping hand
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So lets start giving
Theres a choice were making
Were saving our own lives
Its true well make a better day
Just you and me
When youre down and out, there seems no hope at all
But if you just believe theres no way we can fall
Well, well, well, well let us realize that a change can only come
When we stand together as one
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So lets start giving
Theres a choice were making
Were saving our own lives
Its true well make a better day
Just you and me
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So lets start giving
Theres a choice were making
Were saving our own lives
Its true well make a better day
Just you and me
--------------------------------------
I am delighted by today`s events....
I wish every student get Dr. Kroto as teacher...
God bless all the students who are curious to work upon their excitement of
science!!!!!!!
-----------------------------------------------------
