Dear colleagues,

I am herewith enclosing a broad synopsis of the activities of oits from April 2003 to 31st March, 2004. Most of the materials below also occur in the website www.oits.org.

A. Orissa Information Technology Olympiad:

Orissa Information Technology Society (OITS) conducted the annual quiz test at senior (MCA, BE, B.Sc.(Eng) and B.Sc.(hons)) and junior (upto class XII) levels with separate questions, on 7th September, 2003. The test, to be held on the last sunday of august or the first sunday of september, was originally scheduled to be on 31st august, but was shifted by a week as ganesh puja was there on that day. We contacted Berhampur, Puri, Sambalpur/Burla, Rourkela, Sarang, Cuttack, Raygada, Balasore, Damanjodi, Paradeep, Angul and Bhubaneswar. About 1200 students registered for the same, and around eleven hundred students appeared. This year there was a very positive response from Rourkela, Sambalpur/Burla, Raygada and Balasore and some other places as additional venues. Prof Sudarshan Padhy, Coordinator, IT Olympiad mainly organised this activity, and he was ably assisted by many volunteers including M.Tech. (Comp Sc) students (they were not eligible to contest) and young faculty members. The results at senior and junior levels are as below. The first three rank holders in the senior level were:

1. Puspita Ray, IMCA 9th Semester (Utkal Un)

2. Parthasarathi Dash, Un. College of Eng, BE (cs) 7th Semester (burla)

3. Geeta Mohanty, MCA 2nd Semester (KIIT, bbs)

The first three rank holders in the junior level were:

1. Bagdevi Panda: Class XII, DAV Public School, CDA, ctk

2. Siladitya Mohapatra: Class X, St. Paul school, rkl

3. Amulya Ratna Dash: Class X, Blessed sacrament high school, puri

Names of the other rank holders may be seen at www.oits.org/olympiad/results03.html.

B. Orissa IT Olympiad Prize Distribution

The IT olympiad prize distribution function was held on 18th January, 2004 at 2.30 pm. The Chief Guest was Bikramjit Maitra, Head, Infosys Centre at Bhubaneswar, and the guest of honour was Gautam Parija, administrative head, Infosys Centre, Bhubaneswar. Arun Samantaray, Administrator, Utkal University, presided over the function. All the prize winners, along with their teachers were invited to the function. Also, the parents of the prize winners at junior level were separetely invited. There were altogether about 70 to 80 participants.

The president of oits, S P Misra, welcomed the participants. Next Sudarshan Padhy, Coordinator, IT olympiad program, spoke about the conduct of the olympiad examination, and referred to the fact that on this occasion there were about nineteen centres in which the students appeared, spread all over Orissa.

Prizes were distributed by the Chief Guest, Bikramjit Maitra. In the senior category, the first, second and third rank examinees were given cash prizes of Rs.3,000/-, Rs.2,000/- and Rs.1,000/- respectively, and consolation prizes of Rs.500/- each for the remaining eight examinees above, along with certificates. In the junior category, also the first, second and third rank examinees were given cash prizes of Rs.3,000/-, Rs.2,000/- and Rs.1,000/- respectively, and consolation prizes of Rs.500/- each for the remaining nine examinees, along with certificates. Most of the prize winners took these prizes, and for those who were absent, the amounts along with the certificates were sent by courier.

The Chief Guest addressed the gathering emphasizing the relevance of IT in all phases of our Society. He also mentioned that Infosys has always wanted to increase the number of selected candidates from Orissa, if they satisfy minimal norms needed for it. He mentioned that parallel to Olympiad tests, the selection process in Infosys takes into account not only the background knowledge of the candidates, but also their ability to think and adapt themselves to learn new techniques in computer science. Gautam Parija also emphasized that for selection in Infosys the ability of candidates as such shall always be as important as the knowledge they have already acquired.

Arun K Samantarai, Administrator, Utkal University also focussed on the role of IT in Society. He particularly emphasized the need for closer collaboration with industry to make such programs a success. While all lauded this activity of oits, Sri Samantarai emphasized that assistance could be sought from Industry for such programs.

S P Misra emphasized on two aspects for an extension of the Olympiad activity. (i) He mentioned that there is an attempt to coordinate this activity with a similar activity at all India level, so that they can avail of international competetion, and that (ii) from next year we may have a short training program of the best students appearing in the olympiad. On behalf of Infosys Mr. Maitra assured that help for this can be available from them.

There was then a tea break, after which like last year an interactive session was conducted in the presence of Bikramjit Maitra and Gautam Parija. Here students asked many questions, which were mainly answered by the visitors, along with open house discussions participated by many experts and students.

The meeting ended with a vote of thanks by Ajit Nayak, treasurer, oits as the secretary was absent.

C. Opening of SAMBALPUR CHAPTER

inaugurated on 29.11.2003

In october 2003, about eleven oits members from sambalpur area wanted that we may open the sambalpur chapter of oits. The president then located the earlier members around sambalpur area, and also asked some members outside orissa whether they would like to join this chapter. The executive committee which met on 16.11.2003 then approved that we may open this chapter as per article 6 of the bylaws, and convenor for this chapter, B Patel of G M College, sambalpur was intimated accordingly.

The chapter was formally inaugurated by Prof M C Dash, vice-chancellor, sambalpur university, in a function at G M College premises on 29.11.2003. Prof Arun Pujari, of hyderabad university, was the chief speaker. He gave an illuminating semi-technical talk on artificial intelligence. The Secretary, Dr B Patel talked about the interesting programs that were there during cit2003, and also about the future programs of the sambalpur chapter. Principal G M College was the guest of honour, and S P Misra, president, oits, presided over the function. Prof Pujari had also given a technical talk before the inauguration meeting.

The chapter began with a seed money of Rs.10,800+Rs.8,000, with the first being from the registration fees of fourteen members, and, the second being a donation by S P Misra, as he had a speial attachment to sambalpur as his father, Prof Narayan Misra was the first principal of G M College, which was the beginning of higher education in that area. The name of the account of sambalpur chapter is oits-sbp.

The Secretary has subsequently intimated that the following are the office bearers of the chapter:

1. President: Prof S K Sanyal, Principal, UCE Burla

2. Vice-President: Prof C R Tripathy, UCE Burla

3. Secretary: Dr. B Patel, G M College, Sambalpur

4. Treasurer: Dr. A P Dash, G M College, Sambalpur

D. WORKSHOP ON PARALLEL COMPUTING AND BIOINFORMATICS

22nd and 23rd March, 2004

Here 141 delegates had registered for the workshop. Out of them, there were 10 life members of OIT-sbp, 13 faculties from nearby colleges, rest being students from different branches like MCA, Engnieering. Msc comp. sc., Physics, Mathematics, Botany and Life Sciences.

Professor Sudarsan Padhy, Utkal University, Vanivihar delivered talks on parallel computing in three different sessions.

On 22.03.04, in the first session he illustrated the same through different examples like weather forecasting, image processing etc. emphasizing the importance of Parallel Alogorithms over serial Algorithms, and, taking different examples developed the problems on Parallel Algorithm. In the second Session some more developements in the problems of parallel alogorithms with multiprogramming and multi processing systems were considered.

The uniqueness in the workshop was practical demonstrations as needed. Ajit kumar Nayak, Silicon Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar, demonstrated in two different sessions about clustering of different work stations through Linux with the syntax to write programs using MPI. The programmes were demonstrated to the students. This approch creates a lot of interest among the students for the problems of parallel algorithms.

There were Two Tea Breaks and One lunch break for all the delegates.

On 23.03.04 Professor Padhy developed the problems of parallel algorithms and proved the results.

Ajit Kumar Nayak demonstrated more programs of parallel algotithms to the delegates.

In the after noon session Prof Padhy delivered a talk on Bio-Informatics which was followed by another talk from Prof A.P.Dash, G.M.College. There were two Tea Breaks and one lunch for all the delegates.

A feed back Form were circulated to all deligates and their views were collected, which was enthusiastic and positive.

The main feature of this workshop was its multidisciplinary nature with the delegates also belonging to diverse disciplines.

E. Opening of ROURKELA CHAPTER

In late december, 2003, a letter was received from Prof Sourya Patnaik, director, rourkela institute of management studies (rims) with a list of ten new members from rims along with a request to open a chapter of oits at rourkela. The Institute was rated as among the top 40 B-schools, and had MCA programs along with business school programs. We already had quite a few oits members in nit rourkela, and it was thought that such chapter shall be serving the aims and objectives of oits for the spread of IT in orissa.

S Patnaik and sreekumar both of rims acted as convenors of the chapter. They further requested that they already had a program for faculty improvement scheduled for 8th January, 2004, and it would be nice to inaugurate the rourkela chapter of oits then with the faculty improvement program being the first function under its auspices. However, as per rules oits executive committee needs to approve the opening of a chapter for which time was not available. Since opening of this chapter was totally parallel to the opening of the sambalpur chapter, the president rang up some executive committee members, and with their approval intimated Prof Patnaik that we may do so.

The chapter was inaugurated on 8th january, 2004 by again, Prof M C Dash, vice-chancellor, sambalpur university. The function was attended by the president, oits, who welcomed the delegates, by Prof S Padhy, who spoke about IT and oits, Prof G Panda, who elaborated on many aspects of IT to emphasize that IT is so interdisciplinary that it could hardly be regarded as an independent subject. Prof Sourya Patnaik presided over the function and intimated that they had requested Prof Panda of NIT Rourkela to be the president of the chapter and he had kindly agreed.

One thing about Prof Panda's talk particularly impressed me. He said that he can train computer students to be self-reliant and through software development, through this training, earn their own livelihood at a comfortable level. I do hope that through his leadership, this will come to happen, in which case rourkela chapter will lead oits and all IT lovers about a very positive action.

The afternoon programe was devoted to the workshop on financial computation where an expert from finance introduced the subject, and Prof Padhy talked about the computational modelling of the corresponding theories. It was attended by more than twenty-five participants spread from different colleges in orissa. It is very well known that economic models have become highly mathematical, and with the need for wide-scale data bases, computational finance is becoming a very important area of IT.

The executive committee of oits met on 12.1.2004 where it discusssed about the opening of the rourkela chapter, and approved the same.

Rourkela chapter started with the seed money of Rs.11,210+Rs.8,000, the first above being the money transferred from oits membership fees, and the second being a donation by S P Misra, who was Professor at (then) REC Rourkela for ten years. He also thought that the amount should be reasonable, since as per rules at least half of the above amount shall be kept as fixed deposit. By the way, this fixed deposit gives some stability to the chapters, where generally the members shall try to make the programs self-sustaining. The name of the bank account of the chapter is oits-rkl.

Rourkela chapter at present has seventeen members. The secretary as below has intimated that the following office bearers have taken charge:

1. President: G Panda, NIT Rourkela

2. Secretary: D P Acharya, RIMS

3. Treasurer: Barnali Pradhan, RIMS

Let us wish rourkela chapter all success.

F. Opening of BERHAMPUR CHAPTER

Some oits members of Berhampur University, NIST, and NIC belonging to berhampur met on 29th March and resolved that they wish to open the berhampur chapter of oits. They also elected the following members as office bearers:

President: M R Patra (BU)

Vice-President: R K Dash (NIC)

Secretary: Indraneel Mukhopadhyay (NIST)

Treasurer: S K Padhi (BU)

I received the above communication from the secretary on 30.3.2004. We discussed the matter in the executive committee on 31.3.2004, and decided that the opening of the berhampur chapter be approved, and that the same may be followed up by the new executive committee.

G. OITS BULLETIN:

OITS has started bringing out a Bulletin with semi-technical articles with the first issue (December, 2003) being inaugurated during cit2003. It was initially thought that it would an yearly bulletin, but then in the last general body it was decided that it may come out during June and December of every year. This can be viewed/downloaded from www.oits.org/bulletin . This, along with many very interesting articles, contains an article by S P Misra indicating the gradual evolution of oits.

H. CIT 2003:

The Conference, organised by Orissa Information Technology Society (OITS) and Silicon Institute of Technology de facto extended from 21st December to 25th December, 2003. On 21st, there was a Symposium on IT and Education mainly organised by the Silicon Institute where there were seven speakers from different parts of India. This was conducted by Neharika Vohra from IIM, ahmedabad.

In the afternoon the same day, there was an inauguration function for the Conference. Here N R Mohanty, Chairman, HAL, Bangalore, was the Chief Guest, Damodar Acharya, Vice-Chancellor, Biju Patnaik University of Technology, was the guest of honour, and, Vinay Deshpande, chairman, Encore Software Pvt. Ltd. Bangalore was the Chief Speaker. P K Dash welcomed all, Sudeshna Sarkar spoke about the Conference, and S P Misra gave a vote of thanks. All the three guests gave wonderful inspiring talks with a common theme being to have a sense of confidence by all of us that things are happening, will happen, and in IT or in other fields, we need not be second to any other country.

The main Conference was from 22nd December to 24th December in Swosti Plaza, Bhubaneswar. During the Conference, there were three keynote talks (by (i) S K Tripathy, UCR, USA, (ii) Y Pratt, UT, Arlington, USA, (iii) Sajal Das, UT, Arlington, USA), eight invited talks and three advanced tutorials. Around 230 delegates from 12 countries including India registered for the Conference, and 122 presented their papers in the different technical sessions. There was also an industry session with the theme as "India sustaining leadership position in the global IT market".

On 24th afternoon, the valedictory function took place as the last function of the Conference. S P Misra, President, OITS, conducted the same. The program chairs briefly recapitulated the salient features of the Conference, and then, as in the last year, the results of the two best paper awards were given. (i) Amiya K Pujari IT award of Rs.5000/- and a certificate for the best paper among all the papers submitted and presented in the Conference went to Joydeep Ghosh of University of Texas, Austin, USA, for the paper entitled "A probabilistic approach to privacy-sensitive distributed data mining" done in collaboration with Srujana Merigu; (ii) Narayan Misra IT award of Rs.4000/- and a certificate for the best paper among all the papers submitted from Orissa and presented in the Conference went to D P Das, Silicon Inst of Tech, bbsr, for the paper entitled "Electricity distribution data mining using soft computing and modified wavelet analysis" done in collaboration with P K Dash.

On 25th December, in addition to the three advanced tutorials during the Conference, six tutorials were organised, two of six hour duration, and four of three hour duration, at Hotel Swosti Plaza. All the tutorials were approximately with sixty participants each, and were well received.

Some more information about the conference can be had from www.oits.org/cit2003/rept03.pdf.

The balance with oits at present is Rs.6,88,888.62 of which about Rs.6,36,400/- is kept in fixed deposits. This account, along with the earlier accounts may be seen at www.oits.org/office/account.html .

S P Misra

147, Kanan Vihar HIG Colony, Bhubaneswar 751031, India.

tel:91-674-2740810, mobile: 9437000810

email:spmisra1@sancharnet.in,spmisra@iopb.res.in,spmisra1@yahoo.com