Prof. P J Narayanan, Dean (Research and Development) of International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-Hyderabad) will take over as the Director of the institute from July 24, marking the commencement of the academic year.

He will succeed Prof. Rajeev Sangal who served the institute as Director for over a decade.

“The Governing Council of the institute has selected Narayanan for the top post,” Sangal said. Talking to presspersons on the sidelines of annual R&D showcase here on Saturday, Sangal said he would continue to teach at the institute for some more time as Chaired Professor and Director Emeritus.

R&D showcase

At the two-day showcase, IIIT students of various streams have presented their projects and ideas in the areas of structural engineering, robotics, agriculture, solar technologies, machine translation and mobile applications.

Some of the projects that attracted the attention of the visitors were a catch-catch game where toy cars played the cat-and-mouse and a call centre that gives voice-based answers for queries from farmers. The students also presented a case study that looked into the structural preparedness of buildings in Chandigarh and Nanded for tackling earthquakes.

“The idea is to make students from other colleges aware of what kind of research is going on here. It will also help corporates to have a feel of the R&D work being done here,” Sangal said.

>kurmanath.kanchi@thehindu.co.in