IIT-B holds convocation amid COVID with digital avatars of students

COVID is forcing educational institutes to do almost everything online and virtual, even convocation.

The 58th convocation ceremony at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay on Sunday, while online, had a further improvisation — it had ‘digital avatars’ of the students passing out.

IIT-Bombay said it came with the idea to not “deprive the students of the sense of achievement and pride of passing out” of the institute.

“Keeping in view the safety measures during the ongoing pandemic, the institute held its convocation in virtual reality mode for its graduating students,” it said in a statement. “A personalised avatar of each graduate received the degree certificate from the personalised avatar of director professor Subhasis Chaudhari. The medallists also received their medals from the personalised avatar of the chief guest,” the institute said.

The experiment won rave reviews on social media with the videos of the virtual avatars going viral. Some gave the institute “10/10 for effort”.

A team of about 20 people worked on the digital avatar and on the ceremony, reports said.

Professor Duncan Haldane, co-recipient of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics and a Professor of Physics at Princeton University, was the chief guest at the event, while Stephen A Schwarzman, CEO of PE firm Blackstone, was the guest of honour.

The event was telecast on DD India and DD Sahyadri channels as well as Youtube and Facebook live.

“Providing a virtual reality experience to all our graduates needed not only highly innovative steps but also a tremendous effort by our professors and staff,” director Chaudhari said.

During the ceremony, 684 students were awarded the BTech degree, while 621 students received the MTech degree. The graduating students also included 381 PhDs.

Due to the growing severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, the institute had in June, decided to conduct all lectures online for the rest of the year. This was done to ensure there is no compromise “in the safety and well-being” of the students, director Chaudhari had said in a Facebook post after the senate’s decision to hold the lectures for the next semester online.