Youth must use technology to help elders, society, fight organised crime: Thai Consul General

Srinagar, Oct 31: The 10th annual edition of TechnoVIT – a global event where students compete in numerous technical events and competitions, began at VIT Chennai on Friday.

Over 10,000 students from all over India and 10 foreign nations including Thailand, Poland, Australia, Philippines, Myanmar, Taiwan, and Uzbekistan among others are taking part in the three-day technoVIT’25 event.

Racha Aribarg, Consul-General, Royal Thai Consulate-General, Chennai, was the Chief Guest and delivered the inaugural address. Mr Prince Jayakumar D, Executive Vice President, HCLTech, was the Guest of Honour and Dr. G.V. Selvam, Vice President, VIT, presided.

In his inaugural address, Aribarg said youth working in the sphere of engineering and science must use technology to help the elderly, the society, and also contribute to fighting organised crime. The knowledge gained by students of engineering should go beyond what they have learnt and benefit the world. “The world over, there is a serious issue of digital divide – a gap of knowledge between young and the elderly. Spend some time with elders as otherwise, they will be left behind, unable to use technology in their daily lives,” he said, while appealing to the youth to communicate more frequently with the elderly in their families and others in the society to make their lives better.

In his Presidential Address, Dr GV Selvam said the recent developments in the ties between the United States of America (USA) and India had resulted in a 44 per cent decrease in Indian students going there for higher studies, resulting in ‘Study in India, Make in India.’ Stating there was a general perception that the Indian education system was mostly theoretical, Dr. Selvam said technoVIT’ 25 proved this notion wrong as it demonstrated the innovative capabilities of engineering students, who put their academic knowledge into practical applications. “During COVID-19, we were able to manage on our own, without relying on imports. Necessity is the mother of invention,” he said, adding that at VIT Chennai, their endeavour was to make students apply what they had learnt to create products to benefit the society.

Prince Jayakumar D, Executive Vice President, HCLTech, said a lot of acceleration was taking place in the domains of advanced technologies especially Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing, and the latter especially could cause a lot of disruption in crypto currency. If India had become the IT services capital of the world in the past 3 decades, in the next decade, it will emerge as the innovation capital, and the youth's contribution will be huge. It was crucial to leverage technology to build applications, and how quantum computing can be used to make the world a better place, Mr. Jayakumar added.

Dr. T.Thyagarajan, Pro Vice-Chancellor, VIT Chennai, Dr. K. Sathiyanarayanan, Director, VIT Chennai and Dr. P.K. Manoharan, Additional Registrar, VIT Chennai were also present.