The INAE Annual Convention 2020 was held Online during December 21-22, 2020 due to the unprecedented circumstances all over the world on account of COVID pandemic and the restrictions thereof which limited conduct of a physical Annual Convention. This is the first time that the Annual Convention of INAE was held online. However, the programme was fairly similar to that of the normal Annual Convention held each year. The Annual Convention was preceded by the INAE Governing Council Meeting held online on December 19, 2020. There were a large number of registrations from INAE Fellows/ Foreign Fellows, Young Associates, awardees and delegates for the online INAE Annual Convention 2020.

The Inaugural session was held on December 21, 2020 at 10:30 AM which featured the lighting of the lamp by the dignitaries on the dais viz Dr Sanak Mishra, President, INAE; Prof Indranil Manna, Vice-President and President-Elect, INAE; Dr Purnendu Ghosh, Vice-President, INAE; Dr Pradip, Vice-President, INAE and Prof K Bhanu Sankara Rao, Chief Editor of Publications, INAE. This was followed by the delivery of the Presidential Address by Dr Sanak Mishra, President, INAE.

Dr Sanak Mishra then gave a brief introduction of the Chief Guest, Mr. TV Narendran, FNAE, CEO and Managing Director, Tata Steel Ltd and invited him to deliver the Inaugural Address. Mr TV Narendran delivered an enlightening address on the topic “Engineering Innovations in Industry”. The Inaugural Session concluded with the Vote of Thanks proposed by Dr Pradip, Vice-President, INAE and Chairman, Annual Convention Organizing Committee.

After the Inaugural Session, a small Quiz was held for the delegates in which interesting questions on INAE were read out by the compere and answers were revealed after giving time for the delegates to submit their answers. The names of the delegates who answered the questions correctly were displayed at the end of the day after the Grand Award Function. The Grand Award function commenced at 2PM during which the various awards instituted by the Academy were conferred. In the first part of the Grand Award Function, the Life Time Contribution Award in Engineering; Prof. Jai Krishna and Prof. SN Mitra Memorial Awards; Outstanding Teachers Award and Woman Engineer of the Year Award 2020 were conferred. The citations for the first part of the Grand Award Function were read out followed by acceptance speech by the awardees. The Life Time Contribution Awards in Engineering 2020 were conferred on Prof KA Padmanabhan and Dr TSR Prasada Rao.

Prof KA Padmanabhan being conferred the Life Time Contribution Award in Engineering 2020 virtually

Dr TSR Prasada Rao being conferred the Life Time Contribution Award in Engineering 2020 virtually

Prof Jai Krishna Memorial Award 2020 was conferred on Dr V Ramaswamy and Prof SN Mitra Memorial Award 2020 was conferred on Prof LM Patnaik.

Dr V Ramaswamy being conferred Prof Jai Krishna Memorial Award 2020 virtually

Prof LM Patnaik being conferred Prof SN Mitra Memorial Award 2020 virtually

The Outstanding Teachers Award 2020 were conferred on Prof Ranjit Kumar Ray and Prof Bhim Singh.

Prof Ranjit Kumar Ray being conferred the Outstanding Teachers Award 2020 virtually

Prof Bhim Singh being conferred the Outstanding Teachers Award 2020 virtually

INAE had instituted the award in the year 2020 called “INAE Woman Engineer of the Year Award”. The purpose of the award is to recognize and honour our women engineers every year, who have made outstanding contributions to engineering/technology in India and who serve as role models to upcoming engineering professionals in the future. Three women engineers between the ages of 40 to 60 years, are to be awarded each year- one each from the three categories viz. Academia, R&D and Industry. Nominations were invited for the award this year and the first awardees selected for conferment of the award were Prof. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay in Academia category; Dr. Lalithambika VR in R&D category and Dr. Dheepa Srinivasan in Industry category.

Prof. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay being conferred the Woman Engineer of the Year Award 2020 virtually

Dr. Lalithambika VR being conferred the Woman Engineer of the Year Award 2020 virtually

Dr. Dheepa Srinivasan being conferred the Woman Engineer of the Year Award 2020 virtually

After the break, the Young Engineer Award, Young Entrepreneur Award and Innovative Student Projects Award were presented. Fifteen candidates were conferred the INAE Young Engineer Award 2020. INAE Young Entrepreneur Award was conferred on Mr. Akshay V Singhal and Dr. Anuya A Nisal and Special Commendation Certificate was given to Dr. Sundararajan Krishnan and Mr. Jayant Sitaram Karve. The Innovative Student Project Award 2020 was conferred on Ten nominees at Doctoral level; One individual Award and four shared Awards (Nine nominees) at Masters’ Level and eight individual Awards and two shared Awards (Twelve Nominees) at Bachelor level.

Day 2 of the Annual Convention on December 22, 2020 commenced with the Induction Ceremony for newly elected Fellows/Foreign Fellows and Young Associates. At first the induction was carried out of the two eminent persons from Industry elected under Rule 37 (g) followed by induction of 38 newly elected Fellows and 6 Foreign Fellows. Fifteen Young Engineer Awardees were also inducted as Young Associates. In each case, the citations were read out and Dr Sanak Mishra, President, INAE inducted the Fellows/Young Associates into the fold of the Academy.

Subsequent to the Induction Ceremony, the Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Special General Meeting (SGM) of Fellows was held which was attended by 92 Fellows and Young Associates. During the AGM the revised composition of Governing Council, Sectional Committees and Other Committees/ Forums effective from January 1, 2021 were announced. A Brainstorming Session was held wherein suggestions/inputs were invited from the Fellows on issues of topical concern. During the SGM of Fellows the agenda items included amendment to rules as recommended by the Governing Council. The meetings ended with a vote of thanks to the outgoing President – Dr Sanak Mishra and welcoming of Prof Indranil Manna as the new President of INAE effective from January 1, 2021.

The INAE Annual Convention was a grand success and several messages/emails had been received praising the event a few of which are reproduced below.

• “My congratulations Dr Mishra and Team INAE for the wonderful way the Inaugural Session welcomed each Fellow to the Function. Lots of work and shows the Engineers perfection”
• “Very comprehensive Presidential Address”
• “hearty congratulations to Dr Sanak Mishra, Dr BN Suresh, Dr PS Goel and all the past Presidents of INAE who have brought INAE to the current level of eminence.”
• “Hello everyone, greetings from Chicago. Very well organized”
• “Excellent”
• “A new experience- so well done”
• “Excellently done in COVID19 time”
• Congrats for a well-organized inaugural function in the virtual mode.”
• “Congrats for an excellent digital display of the inaugural event”
• “I am excited and luckiest person to get an opportunity to be part of this function. The way technology usage has been conceptualized and video has been done is awesome”
• “Excellent conf & speeches with good connectivity.”
• “Extremely well organized event.”
• “Good evening from Austin, Texas. Congratulations to INAE. Extremely successful meeting. Very impressed with how this meeting is handled. Very high standards. Excellent. Bravo and warm wishes for the meeting”.
• “I am now enjoying the Inaugural season, and congratulations to you and Team INAE for the excellent and flawless start today.”
• “The inaugural session was a great success. It was like a clock-work. Congratulations to you and your team and Dr. Pradip and his colleagues, and also to Vaishali and Mayank, and the compere Juhi for her clear pronunciation of every single word.”
• “I found the session quite good and appealing. Compliments to everyone who has contributed.”
• “The ceremony is beautifully organised and I am watching it with enjoyment.
• “Hearty Congratulations on a fabulous event today, that went with clockwork precision. Truly experienced “virtual reality” and what better organization than INAE to experiment with this, for the grand function.”
• “The Award Function was very grand though it is virtual.”
• “I thank the organizers for putting in lot of efforts to organize the virtual award ceremony”.
• “That was an excellently conducted event. Both days were handled extremely well and all events went like clockwork. My congratulations and best wishes.”
• “I attended INAE convention both the days on Dec.21 & 22. The event was very well organised. I wish to convey my congratulations to the President Dr. Sanak Mishra and the whole team who was responsible in organising the whole event so well.”

As part of the online INAE Annual Convention 2020, INAE conducted a special Webinar Series from January 4, 2021 to January 20, 2021 featuring technical lectures by awardees for the year 2020 of Life Time Contribution Award in Engineering, Prof Jai Krishna & Prof SN Mitra Memorial Awards, INAE Outstanding Teachers Award, INAE Woman Engineer of the Year Award, Young Entrepreneur Award, Innovative Student Projects Award at Doctoral Level, Young Engineer Award and Newly elected Fellows/ Foreign Fellows affiliated to ten Engineering Sections of INAE.

The presentations focused upon the technical contributions of newly elected Fellows and awardees which were followed by interactive Question and Answer session and summing up of presentations and concluding remarks by the Chairpersons. The Chairpersons comprised of President, INAE and former Presidents and Conveners of the ten Sectional Committees. There was active participation in the webinars and lectures were high in technical content and were found to be interesting for the Audience. There was a total of 77 presentations and about 600 participants in all.

The presentations begun on January 4, 2021 with the lectures by Prof. KA Padmanabhan and Dr TSR Prasada Rao- the Lifetime Contribution in Engineering Awardees, followed by Dr V Ramaswamy and Prof LM Patnaik -the Prof Jai Krishna and Prof SN Mitra Memorial awardees. The session on Day 1 was Chaired by Dr PS Goel, former President, INAE. Day 2 featured the presentations by Prof Ranjit Kumar Ray and Prof Bhim Singh – the Outstanding Teacher Awardees and Prof. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay, Dr VR Lalithambika and Dr Dheepa Srinivasan – the Woman Engineer of the year awardees and the session was Chaired by Dr BN Suresh, Past-President, INAE. Day 3 featured Session on Lectures by Newly Elected Fellows under Rule 37(g) and Lectures by INAE Young Entrepreneur Award Winners and the session was chaired by Dr. Sanak Mishra, President, INAE (2019-2020).

Day 4 and 5 featured Session on Lectures by Newly elected Fellows/Foreign Fellows and Young Engineer Awardees affiliated to Engg Section-I (Civil Engineering) and Engineering Section -II (Computer Engineering and Information Technology. Day 6 entailed Award Lectures by Award Winners of INAE Young Entrepreneur Award and Innovative Student Projects Award at Doctoral Level and was chaired by Prof. Indranil Manna, President, INAE. Days 7 to 14 had interesting presentations by Newly elected Fellows/Foreign Fellows and Young Engineer Awardees affiliated to Engineering Section – III (Mechanical Engineering); Engineering section -IV (Chemical Engineering); Engineering Section -V (Electrical Engineering); Engineering Section -VI (Electronics and Communication Engineering); Engineering Section -VII (Aerospace Engineering); Engineering Section -VIII (Mining, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering); Engineering Section- IX (Energy Engineering) and Engineering Section -X (Interdisciplinary and Special Engineering Fields and Leadership in Academia, R&D and Industry) respectively. The Sectional Committee Conveners were chosen as Chairpersons for the sessions on the respective Sectional Committees. The presentations will be uploaded on the INAE Website shortly for the benefit of researchers and readers.

The Annual Convention Webinar Series presented an exciting opportunity for the awardees and newly elected Fellows to interact with the Fellows and invitees on pertinent technical issues. The webinar series was unique in its outlay and was an outstanding success and appreciated by all delegates.

To view the Block Programme of INAE Annual Convention 2020. Download

To view the Programme of INAE Webinar Series being held from January 4-20, 2021. Download

To view the Award Booklet. Download

To view video of Inaugural Function of INAE Annual Convention 2020 held online on December 21, 2020. Click Here

To view video of Grand Award Function of INAE Annual Convention 2020 held online on December 21, 2020. Click Here

To view video of Induction Ceremony of INAE Fellows & Young Associates held Online on December 22, 2020 Click Here