Virtual Convocation Ceremony hosted by IIT Bombay
Mumbai: Creativity is budding in every field to find alternatives to get its way through the hard-pressed corona times. The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), one of the top-notch educational houses of India, held its 58th annual convocation ceremony on Sunday, the August 23, 2020. Chief Guest of the ceremony was Professor Duncan Haldane, Nobel Laureate in Physics (2016) and a Professor of Physics at Princeton University. Whereas, Mr. Stephen Schwarzman, Founder and CEO of Blackstone Group, was the Guest of Honour.
The way ceremony was conducted put the educational institutes not only in India but across the world in a state of awe and admiration. The Institute held a virtual reality (VR) convocation ceremony wherein it created avatars for each student, faculty members as well as speakers.
"The Institute thought its best to arrange such a VR convocation for the graduating students so as not to put their health at risk but at the same time, not deprive them of the sense of achievement and pride of passing out of India’s premier engineering Institute," IIT Bombay said.
During the ceremony, the personalized avatar walked across the stage to receive the degree certificate from the personalized avatar of the Director Professor Subhasis Chaudhuri.
Professor Subhasis Chaudhuri while hailing the innovative skills of the staff members said, “Providing a virtual reality experience to all our graduates needed not only highly innovative steps but also a tremendous effort by our professors and staff. They did it for the students. Hopefully, this will enthuse our graduates as well as other engineers in the country to think big and think innovatively."
The Institute was thoughtful enough to understand that the convocation might be the only chance for students to meet their classmates and feel the campus and its vibe for one last time. And to address that it shared a link with all the students through which each one could virtually move around the camps, visit their hostels and even do chit-chat with their friends.
Students, parents and their dear ones were completely taken aback and touched by the efforts put by the Institute. Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms were flooded with personalised videos from students and their loved ones.
This act by IIT proves a point that man will find its way!
