Aavishkar 2021

Another Edition of the Virtual Expo! When the talks for organising an exhibition to showcase final year projects began 5 years ago, little did we know that we would be hosting it ‘virtually’, that too, two years in a row. Since the pandemic has confined us to our homes since 2020, Aavishkar too moved to the digital platform to rate and review projects. 

The showcase provides an opportunity for final year students to demonstrate their projects and start a discourse in Civil Engineering with the added perk of the top few projects being awarded. The inauguration kicked off at 9.10am with the welcome speech by Ms Rajalakshmi, Assistant Professor. Subsequently, Ms Jiji Antony, Head of the Department, Civil Engineering inaugurated and launched the website. 

The event proceeded seamlessly to conclusion by 9.40am with a vote of thanks by Mr Abin Thomas, Assistant Professor, FISAT. This ’virtual’ edition featured Practitioner Advisor to ASCE Student Chapter FISA -Mr Johncy K Sam, ASCE-Southern Region President Mr Narasimha Chary Poluju and Dean: Academics,FISAT Dr. Mini P R.

The event received positive responses and was excellently coordinated by student volunteers. The https://sites.google.com/fisat.ac.in/aavishkar21 hosts an array of projects from various streams of Civil Engineering and will be an amazing learning experience for those who wish to explore this science. I, for one, thoroughly appreciated the showcase and what it had to offer. The rating was fun too. Hope you too have an experience as enjoyable as I had. Do leave your reviews and comments! Looking forward to the next edition of Aavishkar, with sincerest hopes that it will be in person, in our ever beloved venue-’Auditorium’ with the pandemic a distant memory.

--Neeraja Nair, AP, CE

Webinar on Ecosystem Restoration - ASCE

The ASCE student chapter conducted a webinar session on June 5th which marked the beginning of the United Nations decade on "Ecosystem Restoration". The student chapter of FISAT collaborated with Amrita Vishwa Vidhyapeedam for this event.

The webinar was conducted in association with KSCSTE - Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (CWRDM), Government of Kerala.

The first lecture of the webinar started at 5 PM and was delivered by Dr. Drissia T K,  Senior Scientist and TPA, ED's secretariat, Hydrology and Climatology Research Group.  Her topic was on  "Regional Flood Frequency Analysis".

Subsequently, the session was handled by Dawn Emil Sebastian, Scientist B, Kottayam Subcentre on the topic "Climate Change" which provided insights into climate and its dynamicson this environment day. The session ended at 6.15 pm with brief felicitation by the Head Of the Department of Civil Engineering Dr. Jiji Antony.

Engineers & Environment - Ms. Ananthitha

The NSS Unit of FISAT collaborated with the Department for conducting a webinar on "Engineers and the Environment " on the occasion of Work Environment Day (5 June 2021). The speaker was Ms. Ananthitha A, who served the department almost seven years back. She is presently the General Manager for Ultra Tech Environmental Consultancy, Thane. It was a very happy moment for the department to have Ananthita back in campus (online 😁) speaking to the students. Ms. Ananthitha is really passionate about the environment and this was really evident in her interaction with the students. Her speech was loaded with examples, all which we come across in day to day life. The way she connected engineering examples to sustainability and environment was really awesome. The program was inaugurated by Dr. C Sheela, Vice Principal.

 

SECON'21 - yet another success story

 SECON is the annual conference on Structural Engineering and Construction Management organised by  the Department, since 2017. The fifth edition was held from 12-15 May 2021. As the the curtains fell today, there was a sense of achievement. The keynote speakers, chairs, co-chairs, authors, participants, each and everyone who associated with the conference expressed their appreciation for the maintaining the quality and executing it in the best possible way. The team was so exited when the feedback poured in during the valedictory function today. 

The highlight of this years conference was the presence of 6 international speakers. (https://secon21.fisat.ac.in) The subject varied from trenches technologies, to machine learning to structural health monitoring and earthquake risk assessment.  This year also springer is associating with SECON for publications. There was an overwhelming response to the call for paper. With nearly 400+ submissions, it was a herculean task for the committee to review and finally accept 100 papers for presentation and publication. There were 100+ reviewers, both from academia and industry. The papers were presented in 27 sessions during the four days of the conference. It was not an easy fete, the entire team of faculty members, student volunteers worked tirelessly for months to execute it. The hurdles posed by the pandemic and unfavourable weather conditions were managed by the team in a perfect manner. The association with professional bodies like ASCE, ISTE, ICI, IE and Paradigm made the conference  special.

Announcing Our New Annual Newsletter PATHWAY 2020

 “Nothing is predestined. The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.” —Ralph Blum

It is with immense pride that the Department of Civil Engineering, FISAT announces the release of our fifth annual Newsletter, PATHWAY 2020.

The creation of this newsletter was quite unlike any other newsletters we had released. The year 2020 breezed off to a promising start and then came the big bang“COVID-19” which shook and terrorised the entire world. But on the flip side, our department pursued this emerging crisis as a challenge and did not compromise on any of the opportunities that we could take up and provide back to our students and the society.

Our goal with this newsletter was to create something resourceful that would depict all the milestones achieved, the events organized and to highlight our students and faculty achievement.

Let’s hope that the New Year 2021 brings a fresh bout of excellence to our lives!

You can access the newsletter from here

Leena Samuel Panackal
Editor, Pathway
Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering