IEOR department, IITB celebrated the first virtual IEOR day on 10th April 2021. Many eminent personalities with international repute shared their experience and ideas on the theme “The pandemic: Living through and Looking beyond” in the form of guest talks. The event was inaugurated by Mr Sharad Saraf, Chairman and Managing Director, Technocraft Industries, and Member of the Board of Governors of IIT Bombay.
The day started with a talk by Dr. Ankit Rai (ML scientist at Amazon) on the topic “Role of building responsible AI during the pandemic.” He shared his thoughts on the importance of visualization skills and how to develop accountability in AI systems through various use-cases such as online retail and e-Pharma companies.
Dr. Harshad Khadilkar (Chief Scientist at TCS) shared his thoughts on the topic “Looking beyond prediction and forecasting: AI-driven adaptive decision-making in industrial operations.” In his talk, he emphasized AI systems, specifically Reinforcement learning systems, and their use in various applications such as optimization, robotic parcel loading, and train schedules.
Dr. Amit Garg (Founder and Chief Scientist at ORMAE) presented a talk, “Innovative Optimization & Data Science Solutions in Supply Chain Industry.” He discussed various case studies solved by ORMAE and how innovative solutions can be built using Machine Learning and Operations Research.
Mr. Vijay Srirangan (ex Director General, Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry) enlightened students on “Industry Interaction for meaningful projects in a post-Covid era.” He emphasized that the time now is appropriate to build strong corporate links for projects that can positively impact the near future.
Dr. Madhav Durbha (VP Supply Chain Strategy, Coupa Software) gave a talk on “The future of supply chain careers & how to prepare for it.” He presented various career options available at the intersection of AI and the Supply chain. He emphasized the opportunities in the last mile delivery industry.
As part of the IEOR Day celebration, two competitive events were conducted to test the promptness of the participants. In spite of the fact that all the participants and the organizing team are spread across the nation, and few abroad, the organizing team came with a genius way to conduct an Online Treasure Hunt based on witty puzzles which had clues to subsequent rounds as their answers. A total of 29 hunters set out to try to find this coveted treasure. Finally winners of this round were promoted to a second round which also consisted of puzzles. Tarun Kumar Garg emerged as the final winner of this event. Quiz-O-Mania had its first round as an Mathematical Aptitude test, followed by a Group discussion assessed by Prof. Manjesh K. Hanawal and Prof. Ashutosh Mahajan. Ashish Pandit and Divya Jyoti Bajpal were announced as the winner and runner up respectively. All the participants enjoyed the competitions, as did the organizers!