IIT-Madras hosts int'l conference on ‘Memory in Digital Age’

CHENNAI: Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) Centre for Memory Studies is organising an international conference on ‘Memory in a Digital Age' from Tuesday to 25th August 2022. This conference is being conducted in hybrid mode, featuring over 160 speakers from the UK, U.S.A., Israel, Poland, and Australia as well as from across India.

IIT-Madras is also tying up with an all-women-led technology company Vizara Private Limited from Delhi for the purpose of producing research on digital humanities and heritage studies. The conference was inaugurated by State Finance Minister Dr. Palanivel Thiaga Rajan.

The conference also saw the release of ‘MemoryBytes,’ the first Augumented Reality-based mobile app, capturing the history and life of the transnational Anglo-Indian community across 500 years. The app will provide an interactive, animated, and augmented experience of photographs, maps, and archival documents during the physical-cum-digital exhibition held during the conference at the IC&SR Building of IIT Madras.

Further, the minister who also launched the ‘MemoryBytes’ app and the Conference Book, said, “Tamil Nadu is within the top 3 states where we have instituted a computer in every MLAs’ desk. Every single debate, bill, and budget will be made available so that MLAs can extract it in real time and contribute to the debate so that they do not have to rely on their internal memory.”

This conference will be followed by the creation of ‘Campus Chronotopes,’ the first VR-based 360-degree stereoscopic video capturing the dynamic life and human-nature interfaces in the IIT Madras campus through omnidirectional cameras. This conference will feature an AR-based physical and digital exhibit at the IIT Madras campus featuring the history and journey of Anglo-Indian communities, directly exemplifying the experience of memory in a digital age.