Chennai: The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) conducted its first-ever Convocation using a ‘Mixed Reality’ mode on Sunday. The programme was held online mixing the virtual and real world. As many as 2,346 degrees were awarded during the 57th Convocation on October 25.
Nobel Laureate and Chancellor’s Chair of Theoretical Physics, University of California, Prof David J Gross attended the event as the Chief Guest. Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Madras and Managing Director, Mahindra and Mahindra, Dr Pawan Goenka presided over the Convocation, according to EdexLive.
“Many of you are completing your education today and are now wondering what the next few years will bring. One thing I am sure of is that no one can give you an answer. The world is undergoing rapid change and as the event of the last few months show, no one can predict what will happen next week, much less beyond that. The same is true of science and one’s career in science,” David J Gross said in his address from Santa Barbara, US.
“Life is not made up of years but of moments. As we look back on our life, what we remember is a collection of moments. None of us remembers our beginning and none of us will remember our end. This moment is both a beginning and an ending for you. For many of you, it is the end of college tuition and the beginning of repayment of student loans. For many of you, it is the end of the process in which you absorbed vast knowledge and the beginning of the process when you begin to apply that knowledge or pass it along to the next generation. For many of you, it is the end of formal education and the beginning of the so-called ‘real-life’.
“For many of you, it is the end of the period in life where you received from your parents and society and the beginning of the period where you give back to society. And there is much that you can give back, for you are a privileged lot. Privileged to be citizens of a rapidly-growing country with a rich and glorious history that is now moving on to take its rightful place in the world. You are fortunate to be free of disease, hunger and war that plagued much of humanity most of the time. You are privileged to have attended a great institution of learning and to have acquired much knowledge,” Prof Gross added.
Gross got the Nobel Prize in Physics along with H David Politzer and Frank Wilczek in 2004 for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction.