Dr. (Mrs) Mini Shaji Thomas is currently the Director of National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli (NIT, Trichy). Dr. Thomas was the founder Director of the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE), JamiaMilliaIslamia (JMI), from 2014-2016, and Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, JMI. She was the Central Public Information officer (CPIO) of JMI from 2008-2014 and the Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering from 20052008. Dr. Thomas was a faculty member at Delhi College of Engineering, Delhi (now DTU), and at the REC (now NIT), Calicut, Kerala before joining Jamia. She graduated from University of Kerala (Gold Medalist), completed her M. Tech from IIT Madras (Gold Medalist, Siemen’s prize) & PhD from IIT Delhi, India, all in Electrical Engineering.  

Dr. Thomas has done extensive research work in the area of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, Substation & Distribution Automation and Smart Grid. She has published over 130 research papers in International Journals and Conferences of repute, has successfully completed many research projects. Dr. Thomas has set up the first of its kind SCADA laboratory and Substation Automation (SA) Laboratory at JMI, with Industry involvement. She, as the founder coordinator, drafted the curriculum, started a unique, first full-time, M Tech program in the Faculty of Engineering & Technology, JMI, in 2003 in Electrical Power System Management,  which has courses on power automation and  novel hands-on training. For these contributions, Dr. Thomas won the IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB) Meritorious Achievement Award 2015 for 'Design and Development of curriculum and laboratory facilities for professionals and students in the electric utility industry". She is the author of the text book 'Power System SCADA and Smart Grids' by CRC Press, Taylor and Francis, USA and is a 'Distinguished Lecturer' of IEEE Power & Energy Society.  

As the founder Director of Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Jamia, Dr. Thomas had created an environment of Innovation and Entrepreneurship which has led to the setting up of a Design Innovation Centre, a Livelihood Business Incubator, doubling the number of patents filed, winning prizes at many innovation competitions and incubating a few student startups. 

  Dr. Thomas received the ‘Career Award’ for young teachers, Govt. of India, won the IEEE Power and Energy Society Outstanding Chapter Chair award 2013, IEEE  Member and Geographic Activities (MGA) Innovation award 2008, IEEE Outstanding Volunteer award 2005, IEEE Outstanding Branch counselor award 2002 and Power and Energy Society (PES) Outstanding Chapter Engineer award.   She is a certified trainer for ‘Capacity building of Women managers in higher education’, by UGC and has conducted many training session for Women empowerment. 

Dr. Thomas is very active in Professional societies and she is among a handful from Asia Pacific to be on the global boards of IEEE. She is currently a board member of IEEE PSPB (Publication Services and Products Board), a member of PES LRP (Long Range Planning) committee. She was a board member of IEEE EAB and served as the vice chair of IEEE MGA Board and was the Asia Pacific student activities coordinator.  She has experience of over a decade in international boards and committees of the IEEE.   Dr. Thomas has traveled extensively around the globe, delivered lectures in prestigious universities and has interacted with technical experts from all over the world.   

Investors helped shares of the Bay State's newest publicly-traded technology company soar by more than 30 percent to about $31 on its first day of trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

The Maynard networking technology firm is the first Massachusetts technology company to go public this year in a down-market for tech IPOs, and with total venture capital backing that's significantly lower than its tech-IPO counterparts. Cybersecurity company Mimecast (Nasdaq: MIME) was the last local tech firm to go public, but that was last November.

"It's a very difficult market environment and it's been slow for the past several months, but if you look at what our profitability and financial models look like, we have the top-line growth that investors look for," said CEO Raj Shanmugaraj in an interview.

Acacia's (Nasdaq: ACIA) 2015 revenue was $239.1 million, up 63.5 percent from $146.2 million in 2014. In 2015, the firm reported net income of $40.5 million, up from net income of $13.5 million in 2014.

The company offers networking technology that increases computing bandwidth. It supplies its technology to equipment makers, which in turn supply Internet service providers such as Comcast and Verizon with their products.

Shanmugaraj said that while it was a big day in the company's seven-year history, he sees major growth ahead.

Acacia is keeping the names of its customers confidential, but he says they are the world's largest network equipment manufacturers, including Chinese tech firm ZTE Corp.

"Going public gives (customers) the scale and transparency to get comfortable doing business with us," said Shanmugaraj, who is originally from India and has lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years. "For us, it's all about innovation and breakthrough technology, and we're going to continue to invest in it and distance ourselves from our competition so we can gain market share."

Shanmugaraj said the proceeds from the IPO might be used for mergers and acquisitions activity in the future, but there are no immediate plans for that yet. The company has 228 employees worldwide with offices in Maynard and New Jersey, and Shanmugaraj said there are no plans to move its headquarters out of Maynard.

Prateek Bajpai did his B.Tech from NIT, Trichy and then100 percentile in CAT in first attempt, along with a regular job in Algeria, North Africa.

He was away from his home, his family and his country, and had no source except for the internet to carry on with his CAT (Common Admission Test) preparation. With no coaching and the internet as his only source of preparation, Prateek Bajpai scored 100 percentile in CAT in his very first attempt.

In an interview with Anumika Bahukhandi, India Today Education, he said that although he was fully confident about his preparation, he was not expecting to obtain such an extraordinary score.

He believes that six months of disciplined, focused preparation along with a proper strategy, helped him achieve his target.

As the curtain unfolds on what the PM has in store for startups this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Startup India, Standup India’ initiative is no less than a rock concert in its own. Scheduled for 16th January, the event has seen a massive response and is is being waited upon with bated breath by the startup community!

Stressing on the ease of financing for startups and liquidity for investors, venture capitalists would like the PM to take some steps in this regard. Says Shubhankar Bhattacharya, Venture Partner at Kae Capital, “ Some relaxation in debt financing norms for startups is much needed so that they can avail loans from formal banking channels even while making losses or little/no revenue. Additionally, an alternative exchange to list early-stage startups should be created, offering retail investors with high risk-appetite to invest in such companies, while offering liquidity to entrepreneurs and early-stage investors.”

Shubhankar also suggested creation and promotion of a structured program that facilitates and encourages entrepreneurship, either as an alternative or supplementary to traditional education, similar to what the Thiel Fellowship offers. Similarly, the ‘Make in India’ program could be extended to encourage startups operating in core sectors such as agriculture, infrastructure, healthcare, education etc. focused on developing innovations tailored for Indian consumers.

On the infrastructural side, Bhattacharya suggested subsidising internet data usage to encourage internet and mobile businesses.

Pragyan, the student run, non profit techno managerial organization of NIT Trichy, is organising its annual four day fest on January 16 and 17 at Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat).

The fest includes workshops, Infotainment shows, guest lectures, exhibitions etc. It has over  At Cusat, Square One - Kochi will feature- Grab to Smash, a test of your robot building capabilities where your bots will be competing against each other, and the Pragyan Quiz, an exciting event for the quizzard in you, a release said here. Apart from this array, there will also be a Quadcopter Workshop to teach the participant the nuances and technicalities of building the perfect quadcopter.

These outreaches are conducted to propagate and share Pragyan’s love for technology and management beyond the boundaries of NIT Trichy.

In today's life when the whole world is shifting to digital mediums for day to day routine works, cyber security is the need of the hour.

Working towards the mission to fight cyber crime, graduates from NIT Trichy and UCL London came together to form "Spherical Defence Labs", a new startup doing cyber security tests for PayTM and OYO Rooms.

Their inspiration was winning the second place all India at the Microsoft HackCon hacking event, and they went on to establish a global company with offices in London, Pune and California.

Cyber security is a matter of national security with the heavy reliance of critical national infrastructure on technology, and the sheer usage of mobile wallets and E-Commerce websites. Cyber security is on top of Prime Minister Modi's agenda for Digital India, where he dreams of it to become an integral part of national security.

He believes cyber security is giving sleepless nights to the heads of states of nations across the world. "Is it not possible for us to create a foolproof mechanism against cyber threats so that the world can sleep well?" Mr. Modi said. If a solution to this problem is not found, many will stop using technology altogether due to concerns of hacking and surveillance, etc, which could come as a huge shock to the industry.

Spherical Defence Labs works to expose hacks, vulnerabilities and loopholes in server infrastructure, websites and mobile applications.With clients including PayTM, OYO Rooms, Citrus Pay and NIT Trichy among others, they are hot in the cyber security industry.

Dishant, one of the Founders says that "Cyber security is one of the biggest concerns, and something which is becoming extremely relevant. Just some time back, a major UK telecom service provider, TalkTalk was hacked and this lead to a data breach, which may have potentially included credit card data. Surprisingly this was a trivial SQL Injection vulnerability, exploited by a fifteen year old teen. At present, skilled expertise in security is hard to find. This is precisely what leads to massive vulnerabilities and loopholes, which can be exploited easily."

The shortage of talent is the problem, and most of the companies take security seriously only after it's too late. Being solely focused on growth, Cyber security is often overlooked by startups.

According to the NASSCOM President R Chandrasekhar, India needs at least one million cyber security professionals by 2020, however the current estimate is at 50,000. This is the gap in the market and the problem Spherical Defence is fixing.

The founders of Spherical Defence Labs are four Cyber security experts from NIT Trichy and UCL.

They have an extensive background in technology and hacking, and have won multiple events whilst at college including the Paypal Hackathon and the Microsoft HackCon. They have contributed to and created popular open source projects, and have developed internal services and the website at college. They've also had multiple stints at the biggest names in tech including Microsoft, Amazon and Samsung.

The National Institute of Technology-T has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with PepsiCo India Private Holdings for promoting research. It was signed a few days ago in New Delhi. As a sequence, D. Shivakumar, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pepsico India, visited NIT-T on Tuesday.

Mr.Sundarrajan, Director, who had invited him, held a discussion with Mr. Shivakumar. Heads of various departments took part in it. Making a power point presentation, Mr. Sundarrajan said the NIT had become a leading institutions of higher learning. In his brief message, Mr. Shivakumar said that practical experience would have an edge over theoretical knowledge. It had been focussing on institute-industry relationship so as to offer practical experience.

The maiden entry film by Blurr India won laurels at the recently concluded Indian Film Project Sarath Chan, (Sarath Chandran) and his Blurr India team are on cloud nine. They may not have won the top laurels but their film dreams have certainly taken wings. Their film Photo Mohan, won the fifth place at the prestigious Indian Film Project (IFP) recently.

Sarath who hails from Kumbalam is now pursuing his B. Arch degree at the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Trichy. It was at NIT that Blurr India, an entertainment start- up, was founded. “Film making presented us with more failures than success. We analysed every failure and attempted to improve ourselves. It surely was challenging and we were embarking on something that we never imagined.

But we were focussed on producing good quality movies. With Canon cameras, Adobe software and a tripod we started Blurr India. Five of us, Raj Sid, Anurag.S, Saathwik, Mano and I founded this start up in February 2014. Our goal was to make creative videos,” says Sarath on e-mail. The team decided to participate in the Indian Film Project (IFP) with some circumspection. Here they were competing with over 15,000 film makers, 640 films from 18 countries and 182 cities.

National Institute of Technology (NIT), Trichy; Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad; and VIT University in Vellore are seeing a jump of up to 49% in average salaries this year over the last. Information technology and ecommerce companies remain top recruiters. AK Bakthavatsalam, professor and head of the department of training and placement at NIT Trichy, said that IT product companies flush with startup funding have been aggressively acquiring talent. Amazon is offering up to Rs 29.96 lakh for certain roles this year, compared with Rs 25 lakh paid out last time.

Kochi has been selected as one among the eight centres that will host ‘Epiphany’, an ideation bootcamp organised by NIT Trichy on Friday.The other cities where the event will be conducted - also on Friday - are Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Jaipur, Pune and Coimbatore.The expected footfall for Epiphany, aimed at creating a ‘revolutionary entrepreneurial impulse’ is over 1,000 students, the organisers said. Epiphany in Kochi will be held at Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat).“In order to bring about an entrepreneurial impulse among students in the country; E-Cell of NIT Trichy in association with CitrusPay is organising ‘Epiphany’ - simultaneous ideation bootcamps powered by Headstart Network in eight major cities, and internship drives in 3 major cities. These ideation bootcamps are aimed at giving students a preview into the journey of an entrepreneur, and inspire them to take the plunge. During these bootcamps, students may come in with or without an idea - but will walk out as a part of a startup team which has a basic business proposition ready. Eminent entrepreneurs from local startup communities will be present to engage the participants and share valuable insights,” a release said here.Along with Epiphany, NIT Trichy will also be holding a startup internship drive (InTurn) in association with HeadStartup Network- the largest startup Network in the country on Friday at three of the venues.“To make Ideation Bootcamp, a quality event registration has been restricted to 100 participants per city and online registration has started for the same. The second round of internship drive has started in Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad and the final pitch will be made in front of startup panel on Friday,” a release said.For more info of the event, http://www.ecell-nitt.org/epiphany15For registration in Kochi event log on: http://goo.gl/forms/D2YYIb1izQ.

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