April 3
Turiya, the spiritual club of IIIT-B, organized a vibrant celebration of Ram Navami on campus. Students, dressed in traditional attire, came together to participate in a series of cultural events, including devotional music, dance performances, and bhajans. The celebration also featured the distribution of prasadam, adding to the festive spirit. The event was well attended and thoroughly enjoyed by all.
April 11
Aikyam NSS-IIITB, our institute’s social volunteering club, in collaboration with the Bangalore Medical Services Trust (BMST), organized a Blood Donation Camp at IIIT-B. Faculty, staff and students participated in this camp wholeheartedly to support the noble cause. Their enthusiastic participation helped make the camp a resounding success, highlighting the spirit of community service at IIIT-Bangalore.
April 16
102nd Senate Meeting held
In the 102nd Senate Meeting Prof. SS Prabhu and prof. Balaji Parthasarathy for being part of all 100+ Senates at IIIT-B. In addition, Prof. Prabhu attended his final Senate meeting, as he stepped down from his role. He was honoured with a shawl in appreciation of his contributions.
April 19
IIIT-B Collaborates with Let’s Talk Spatial to Host Premier Geospatial Meetup
IIIT-Bangalore hosted the “Spatial Talk and Network #20” meetup, a monthly gathering for geospatial and GIS professionals, on Saturday, April 19, 2025.
Jointly organized by Let’s Talk Spatial and IIIT-B, the event featured insightful sessions from leading experts in the geospatial domain. The speakers included Prof. Jasmeet Judge, Director of the Center for Remote Sensing at the University of Florida (currently affiliated with ICWaR, IISc), and Dr. Subash Yeggina, Senior Research Scientist at Pixxel Space.
The meetup provided a dynamic platform for knowledge exchange, networking, and discussion around emerging trends and applications in spatial technologies.
April 22
Celebration of World Earth Day
World Earth Day was celebrated at IIIT-B with tree plantation ceremony. Dr. Debabrata Das, Director, Cmde SR Sridhar (Retd.), Registrar and Mr. Jagadish Patil, CAO led the event, joined by faculty, students and staff.
April 22
K-VLSI students attended a thought-provoking session by our Registrar Sir Cmde. SR Sridhar (Retd.) on Saptasutras- Seven Habits of highly effective people. – An interpretation through Indian Knowledge Systems.
April 23-24
‘Re-Imagining Pathways for Assistive Technology’ – IIIT-Bangalore Hosts Key National Consultation Led by NCPEDP and Mphasis Foundation
In a significant step toward enhancing India’s Assistive Technology (AT) landscape, the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B), through its Centre for Accessibility in the Global South (CAGS), hosted a two-day multi-stakeholder consultation titled “Re-Imagining Pathways for Assistive Technology.” The event was organised by the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) in collaboration with Mphasis Foundation, bringing together key stakeholders to discuss inclusive and impactful AT solutions for India.
The consultation served as a dynamic platform for dialogue and collaboration among policymakers, corporates, startups, academia, civil society, and persons with disabilities. Designed to accelerate inclusive innovation, the event showcased thought leadership and action in the AT sector. A key highlight was NCPEDP’s presentation of a comprehensive policy paper on India’s AT landscape, along with panel discussions, a roundtable, and startup pitches focused on scalable, inclusive solutions.
Panel discussions explored key challenges in the assistive technology (AT) value chain, including import dependency, high production costs, and limited access. Experts emphasized the need for local AT manufacturing, policy support, subsidies, CSR initiatives, and integration into healthcare. They also highlighted how AT can promote inclusive education, workforce inclusion, skilling, and independent living for persons with disabilities.
A roundtable under the consultation’s theme—“Re-Imagining Pathways for Assistive Technology”—brought together investors, policymakers, corporates, innovators, and end-users to explore innovative financing models—ranging from government subsidies and insurance coverage to ESG-aligned venture capital investments. With only 10% of the 26.8 million persons with disabilities in India having access to assistive devices, the session underscored the need for sustainable AT business models, cross-sector partnerships, and empowering persons with disabilities as co-creators in the innovation journey.
The final day of the consultation spotlighted innovative startup pitches presenting cutting-edge assistive technology (AT) solutions. A distinguished jury from NCPEDP, ICMR, IvyCap Ventures, Mphasis, IIIT-Bangalore, and STPI evaluated the pitches, awarding the NCPEDP-Mphasis AT Hub Seed Grant to seven promising startups, providing them with crucial seed funding to scale their impactful solutions
This landmark consultation underscored the vital role of inclusive innovation, policy alignment, and collective effort in building a robust and accessible AT ecosystem—one that truly leaves no one behind.
April 25
Microsoft and IIIT-Bangalore Launch “A4I – the AI Innovation and Inclusion Initiative” to Drive Scalable AI for Societal Impact
International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) and Microsoft announced the launch of A4I – the AI Innovation and Inclusion Initiative, a collaborative effort aimed at advancing the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to create inclusive, impactful, and scalable solutions for underserved communities.
Through this initiative, Microsoft and IIIT-B will work closely to build a framework for partnerships and sustained scaling and support. This framework will help scale innovations already developed and tested by Microsoft into widely accessible Digital Public Goods (DPGs). The goal is to foster an ecosystem that nurtures AI-driven innovations for long-term societal impact.
A4I will collaborate with domain-specific partners in education, healthcare, and accessibility to build solutions that are impactful and replicable at scale.
As the first step, A4I will take up following projects, each of which originated at Microsoft Research India, to deploy at scale:
- Shiksha Copilot and its extension, Shiksha SEEDS, in the education and accessibility domains, aimed at empowering educators.
- ASHA Saheli project in the health domain, which focuses on last-mile healthcare delivery.
These projects are driven on the field by the following domain partners: Sikshana Foundation, Vision Empower Trust, and Khushi Baby.
April 28
Inauguration of LG Soft Lab
The LG Soft India team lead by Mr. Sung Hyun Cho, President, LG Soft India visited IIIT-B campus. The LG Soft lab was inaugurated and MoU exchanged between IIIT-B and LG Soft, India.