IIITH TechForward Seminar Series Marks 12 Successful Editions
IIIT Hyderabad’s TechForward Research Seminar Series, an academia-industry confluence around emerging technologies is currently in its 12th edition, having successfully completed a year of deep insights, directional talks, and industry/business outlooks from highly accomplished thought leaders, on one theme every month. The talks were converted into features that are compiled into a monthly dispatch as a ready reckoner for technology directions.The research seminar series covered themes across various domains such as computer vision, artificial information, robotics, quantum computing, AI on the Edge, healthcare, tech in financial services, software architecture, LLMs, sustainable mobility and agentic AI. Over the past year, IIITH collaborated with leading companies such as Qualcomm, ISB, Google, GoldmanSachs, Bosch, Llyods Technology Centre, Meta, Accenture Evernorth Health Services, ZF India and ServiceNow.
IIITH and KIET Sign MoU to Launch Smart City Living Lab with Integrated Net-Zero Dashboard at KIET Campus
In a significant step toward accelerating urban innovation, Smart City Research Centre at IIITH and KIET signed a MoU on 17 June 2025 at the KIET Campus to support the Kakinada Smart City Mission. The collaboration aims to bring cutting-edge research, real-time urban solutions, and emerging technologies to the forefront by establishing a Smart City Living Lab at the KIET campus and extending the same to Kakinada Smart City. The initiative, launched in the presence of the Kakinada District Collector Shri Sagili Shan Mohan and other dignitaries, marks a new chapter in bridging academia, government, and technology for smarter, more sustainable cities. The lab will serve as a collaborative ecosystem to support the research, development, and deployment of smart city solutions, enabling students, researchers, and city stakeholders to tackle practical urban challenges.
AI advancements in the mobility space
At the recently concluded TechForward series seminar on AI in Vehicles, Prof. C V Jawahar described the mobility-related research efforts being undertaken at IIITH. Here’s a summarized version. At IIITH, we have been aiming to solve problems on Indian roads and driving conditions using data-driven technologies. With the help of techniques from machine learning, computer vision, computer graphics, computational sensing, and allied areas, we have been creating solutions and transferring these solutions across diverse practical conditions on roads. One of the research studies that was undertaken includes early anticipation of driver actions before the onset of a manoeuvre, such as a turn, a lane change, a sudden halt and so on. When you know the driver in front of you is going to take a right turn without indicating with a signal, you anticipate and get ready for it perhaps by slowing down or changing lanes.
Prof. P J Narayanan on IIITH’s Unique Research-led Curriculum
In an interview with Business World team, Prof. P J Narayanan describes the industrial, social and healthcare applications of the translational research being carried out at the institute. Answering a question, Prof. P J Narayanan says, IIITH has been a leader in AI and related areas through KCIS that was endowed by TCS in 2015. Our strengths include all core Al areas including machine learning, cognitive science, data analytics, natural language processing, speech processing and synthesis, robotics, computer vision, etc. Building on the foundations of academic research, we have been focusing on applied and translational research in the past several years. This involves research with specific industrial or social application as the focus. We established two entities – INAI and RCTS – for large-scale applied research. The Technology Innovation Hub established by the DST at the institute has data-driven applications as its focus and works synergistically with the institute’s research centres and labs.
IIITH based BharatGen team launches Patram: India’s First Vision-Language Foundational Model for Documents
A team from IIITH has introduced Patram-7B-Instruct, India’s first vision-language foundational model designed specifically for complex document understanding. This landmark achievement is part of the BharatGen initiative, a government-supported program to develop India-centric Multimodal Large Language Models, funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST). Patram-7B-Instruct is a 7-billion parameter AI model trained on a large, diverse corpus of Indian documents. It can analyze scanned or photographed documents and respond accurately to natural language instructions, making it a versatile tool for varied applications across sectors. Despite its relatively compact size, Patram surpasses larger international models such as DeepSeek-VL-2 on prominent benchmarks like DocVQA and VisualMRC.
Anemia Detection with Smartphone
Arjun Rajasekar describes how pallor detection is being used by the Raj Reddy Center for Technology and Society (RCTS) as a non-invasive method of detecting anemia. Capitalizing on the rise of AI and the ubiquity of consumer smart devices, RCTS has been exploring AI applications to improve maternal and child well-being. One of the first medical conditions chosen for exploration has been anemia, a globally prevalent issue affecting approximately 29.9% of women aged 15–49 and 39.8% of children aged 6–59 months in 2019. These rates are even higher in India, with estimates from the National Family Health Survey indicating that over 50% of women and 59% of children aged 6–59 months are anemic to varying degrees. Such widespread prevalence poses a substantial public health challenge. Anemia is characterized by a deficiency in the number of red blood cells or the hemoglobin concentration within them, resulting in a diminished capacity to transport oxygen to bodily tissues.
Prof. Ramesh Loganathan – it’s a myth, AI will replace jobs
Prof. Ramesh Loganathan has clarified that it is a myth that jobs will be lost due to artificial intelligence (AI). He suggested that employees in the IT sector should update themselves to new technology. He said that out of the total 10 lakh IT employees in Hyderabad, only 20-30 thousand are working using AI. He said that AI will not have any impact on engineering education. Just as civil and mechanical engineers are software employees, anyone who has completed any course in engineering can get qualified AI jobs. He said that there is currently a need for graduates in all fields, and there is a worrying situation in the construction and manufacturing sectors where there is a shortage of civil and mechanical engineers. In an exclusive interview with ‘Namasthe Telangana’, he shared several interesting facts about the impact AI will have on engineering education as well as the IT sector.
Prof. P J Narayanan delves into India’s tech education ecosystem with ET Education
In an ET Education exclusive conversation, Sheeba Chauhan, Senior Associate, ET Education delved into India’s tech education ecosystem with Prof P J Narayanan, Director of International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad. India is now the second-largest higher education system in the world— home to over 1,100 universities. This expansive landscape focuses on research, deep-tech innovation, startup culture, and much more. One such trailblazer is the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad — a pioneer in AI, computer vision, robotics, natural language processing, and more. In this ET Education exclusive conversation, we delved into “What it takes to build a deep-tech academic powerhouse” with Prof. P J Narayanan, Director of International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad
IIITH helps digitise Punjab assembly documents
Setting new standards in legislative transparency, the IIITH, Punjabi University (PU) Patiala, and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) Noida, have digitised images of Punjab assembly debates dating back to 1947 and made them available online. The institutions have also created a search engine to enhance public accessibility. Not only that, the team has also made it inclusive with audiobooks. The search engine, developed under the guidance of CV Jawahar of IIITH, and Gurpreet Lehal, consultant at PU, is an initiative of the National Language Translation Mission, Bhashini. The institutions launched the project about two years ago. “Using Optical Character Recognition (OCR), we have converted scanned PDFs into searchable PDFs,” said Krishna Tulsyan, a research engineer from IIITH, who worked as team leader on the project. “Now, using the search engine, users can search for anything — not only in English, but also in regional languages — in these PDFs without even opening them.”
IIITH Faculty receive ANRF Early Career Research Grant
Three professors at the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad have received research grants by the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) to grow and foster a culture of research and innovation in the country. Prof. Chittaranjan Hens, Centre for Computational Natural Sciences and Bioinformatics, Prof. Karthik Vaidyanathan, Software Engineering Research Centre and Prof. Gowtham Kurri, Signal Processing and Communications Research Centre have been awarded the Prime Minister’s Early Career Research Grant initiated under the Anusandhan National Research Foundation which supports young researchers in initiating their research careers in a new institution with the help of a flexible budget and progressive initiatives for the ease of doing research. Each research grant which is meant for young researchers no older than 42 years of age provides up to 60 lakhs plus overheads for a period of 3 years.