MIT to hold emerging technologies conference in Bangalore

WASHINGTON - About 100 leading business and tech visionaries from around the world would discuss innovative ideas and market ready incubated technologies at the annual emerging technologies conference, EmTech 2010, in Bangalore next month.

The two-day conference from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) Technology Review is being held in India for the second year in succession, in association with CyberMedia, from March 8.

It will cover a variety of cutting edge topics ranging from green computing techniques, clean transport alternatives and smarter energy grid to the role that wireless can play in connecting India. Special sessions on innovative diagnostics and neglected diseases will draw attention towards unheralded healthcare fields. A session on the future of nanotechnology will touch on the new capabilities, giving new ways to make things and heal bodies.

Dr. Subra Suresh, the Dean of MIT’s School of Engineering, and several of his colleagues will be part of the eminent panel of speakers from around the world.

Leading Indian biophysicist and the Director General of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Samir. K. Brahmachari and well known biotech entrepreneur Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw will engage in a fireside chat on igniting the innovation gene.

A session on neglected diseases will explore the possibilities of finding affordable vaccines against AIDS, malaria and pulmonary tuberculosis by 2015.

Eminent scientists like Dr. B V Ravikumar and Dr. Suresh Vazirani will explore the possibilities of protecting infants against at least 20 pathogens through their lives in the next 15 years.

Speaking about Emtech, the best attended emerging technologies conference in the US and held at the MIT campus since 2000, Technology Review Publisher and Editor Jason Pontin said:

“The highlight of the conference will be the two-day brainstorming sessions by a dozen researchers from MIT’s Media Lab to propose innovative solutions to some India-specific technological challenges.”

“Technology Review will honour 20 individuals under the age of 35 for their innovative and promising technical work that is likely to shape the future of mankind,” Pontin, editor of the 111-year old technology journal from the USA, added.

The TR35 India awards will span a range of technologies from biotech, arts and entertainment, and software development to semiconductors, transportation, energy, and new materials research.

“The session on Social Innovations at EmTech 2010 will break the myth that technologies only touch the sophisticated as it will focus on developments that will benefit those at the bottom of the pyramid,” says Pradeep Gupta, founder of specialty publishing giant CyberMedia, the publishers of Techology Review’s India edition.