India has a thing with hot. It was hot in the sixties & seventies, Indian food has been hot as long as mankind can remember and now technology in India is hotter than ever. An excellent example of this was the fifteenth edition of Techfest, the International Science and Technology Festival organized by IIT Bombay (India) that took place on January 6, 7 & 8. For this edition the organization hitched their hi-tech wagon (see photo) to a brochette of international stars by inviting world renowned authors, inventers, scientists and artists to lecture and perform. More than 92,000 people attended the 3-day festival and participated in the 150+ events ranging from competitions and exhibitions to mind blowing technological shows.

 

Conferences by Nobel laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, the author of “Fermat’s Last Theorem”, Simon Singh, and the inventor of MP3, Karlheinz Brandenburg, were just a few of the highlights of this successful edition. Impressive shows and performances by many artists and groups from all over the globe showed that technology is no longer the domain of introverted geeks & nerds in smelly rooms. Robots were all over the place, in competitions fighting each other, emulating the spectacular powers of the X-Men character Magneto and on the exhibition floor showing off their ever increasing capabilities and performance.


Try to be there next year, it will be worth it!