Welcome to Vellore Chapter
Prelude and Formative Period: Thanks to the visionary leadership of VIT’s Chancellor Dr. G. Viswanathan, the idea of forming a chapter of CSI at Vellore Chapter was mooted on 15th Oct 2004 when Mr. P.R. Rangasamy, the then Vice President of CSI and Dr. V.B. Kaujalgi, Fellow of CSI and Professor of IIM-Bangalore visited VIT as the Chief Guest and Guest of Honour respectively in a seminar organized by VIT’s Student Association of Information Technology. Prof. P. Radhakrishnan, the then Vice Chancellor of VIT nominated Prof. H.R. Vishwakarma and myself to lead membership drive for enrolling faculty members as CSI life members. The university extended 25% contribution towards life membership fee. The proposal to form CSI Vellore Chapter was sent to the CSI HQ on 10th December 2004 soon after enrolling about 90 members (72 life, 15 individual and 3 institutional members). During the 1st General Body meeting held 19th January 2005, Prof. Birjendra Singh was chosen as Chairman of Nominations Committee and the management committee was constituted with Prof. H.R. Vishwakarma as Founder Chairman and myself as Founder Secretary for the proposed CSI Vellore Chapter.
The Formation and Inaugural: The ExecCom, in its meeting held on 25th February 2005 at Hyderabad, formally approved the proposal of forming a CSI Vellore Chapter at VIT campus. Mr. P.R. Rangasamy inaugurated Vellore Chapter on 28th February 2005 (National Science Day) in a function presided by Prof. Radhakrishnan. Mr. Satish Babu, then RVP and Mr. T. Sabapathy of CSI-BC, were guests of hnours. Subsequently, CSI VIT Student Branch was inaugurated on 6th April 2005 (Salt disobedience day) by Mr. M.L. Ravi, the immediate Past President of CSI in a function presided by VIT Chancellor Dr. Viswanathan. CSI Fellow and Past President Dr. R. Srinivasan was guest of honour. Ms. Margret Announica became Founder Student Branch Counselor. These developments at VIT University under patronage of its Chancellor are unique in the sense – that no other institution in India has hosted CSI Chapter and Student Branch together and also not other organization (including academic and non-academic institutions) has such a large base of CSI life members till date.
The Mentors and Distinguished Visitors: The CSI Vellore Chapter and CSI VIT Student Branch jointly organized many programmes which attracted excellent resource persons and participants. The CSI ExecCom and especially senior members from nearby chapters such as Mr. P.R. Rangasamy, Prof. C.R. Muthukrishnan, Mr. H.R. Mohan, Mr. T. Sabapathy, Ms. Mini Ulanat, Dr. R. Srinivasan, Dr. S. Ramani, Dr. Janakiram, Satish Babu, Dr. D.D. Sarma supported for the chapter and its programmes. Other distinguished visitors include: Prof. V. Rajaraman, Prof. L.M. Patnaik, Prof. N. Balakrishnan, Prof. N.J. Rao (IISc Bangalore), Prof. Gopal Gupta, Prof. B. Srinivasan (Monash Univ., Australia), Dr. C. Mohan, (IBM),Prof. Rajasekaraan Pillai, Prof. K. Subramanian (IGNOU) , Dr. Uwe Wlokal, Dr. Axel Toll, Dr. Bettina (Univ. of Applied Sciences, Germany), Dr. Sarat Chandra Babu, Mr. Mohan Ram, Mr. Zia Saquib, Mr. C.N. Ajit, Mr. M.R. Rajagopal (C-DAC), Prof. Tamil Selvi, Anna Univ., Prof. K.R. Srivatsan, Prof. S.S. Prabhu, Prof. Asoke. Talukder (IIIT-Bangalore), Mr. Richard M. Stallman, Dr. Anirban Basu, Mr. Srinivasan Desikan, Mr Waman Jawadekar, Mr Gopalaswamy Ramesh, Mr. K.R. Jayakumar and others.
Highlights of Programmes and Achievements: With the excellent team efforts and VIT’s infrastructural support, the Chapter soon became synonymous with organizational vibrancy and high-quality programmes. It hosted more than 10 workshops and seminars (including two national events) and weekly technology-appreciation lecture series within the first year itself. Subsequently, Prof. Vishwakarma was nominated as CSI National Student Coordinator and Prof. K. Ganesan succeeded him as Chairman of CSI Vellore Chapter.
The themes/topics of programmes organized by the chapter include: Network Management & Security, Sofware Reliability & Testing, Data Warehousing, Data Mining & Business Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, Grid Computing, Network Simulation & Modelling, Knowledge Management, Image Processing, Software Productivity- Tools & Techniques, Software Development Methodologies, Automotive Software Engineering. The members support progroammes held at VIT such as Swatantra- Symposium on Open Source Software, Finishing School in Software Engineering, ObCom-International Conference on Objects and Components-based Software Development and projects on social issues-e.g. environment, health-care, school education, employability.
A new conference series on Education and Research (ConfER) was launched and hosted at VIT University on 29-30 March 2008 during Prof. Vishwakarma’s tenure as Chairman of CSI Division-V (Edu. & Research). Subsequent, it was hosted in different cities: ConfER-2009 (13-14 March, Kochi), ConfER-2010 (6-7 March, Guna), ConfER-2011 (23-24 January, Allahabad) and the fifth event ConfER-2012 (12-13 January) is coming up at Faridabad.
Prof. P. Kalyanaraman
Chairman, CSI Vellore Chapter (2011-12) &
Founder Hon. Secretary (2004-06)
COMPUTER SOCIETY OF INDIA
VELLORE CHAPTER,
Room No 307 & 328, 2nd Floor, Main Building,
VELLORE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,
VELLORE 632014, TAMIL NADU, INDIA
Tel.: 0416-2202196,2202198
Fax : 0416-2243092, 2240411
Email: csivc@rediffmail.com