ICAIM – 2021, International Conference on Advances in Information Technology and Management was conducted on 20-21 February 2021 themed “Leveraging Information Technology for Sustainability in Agriculture and Medicine – COVID 19 Crisis” in association with AMC (Association of Medical Consultants), MACCIA (Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture) and Nordic Center for Sustainable Healthcare (NCSH).
ICAIM-2021 was a unique virtual interdisciplinary International Conference enabling various IT solutions leveraged in domains of Agriculture and Healthcare in the COVID 19 pandemic. Other futuristic avenues for application of IT in these areas were also discussed by eminent personalities from all three fields.
Chief Guest – Mr. Santosh Mandlecha, President, MACCIA virtually inaugurated the Conference on 20 February 2021 along with Mr. Milind Prabhu, State Coordinator, MACCIA, Dr. Suresh Shan, Innovation & Future Technologies BITS at Mahindra and Mahindra Financial Services Limited, Mr. Akshay Shah, CEO– iWebTechnology Solutions Pvt. Ltd., and Dr. Vinita Gaikwad, Director, TIMSCDR and unveiled the Conference Proceedings of ICAIM-2021 having 70 research papers written by research scholars and academicians.
Sessions by eminent personalities were delivered as – “Challenges faced by Farmers during COVID-19 Pandemic and the opportunities for IT domain” by Mrs. S. Bhadsawale, SagunaBaug; “Using IT in Agriculture – Digital Green” by Ms. Stuti Verma, Software Engineer I, Digital Green; “IT for Agriculture” by Mr. Prathap Selvan, Founder and CEO, Frutunes Food Products (P) Ltd; “Using IT for Agri-Marketing – Crophunt” by Mr. Nishant Dubey, Founder and CEO, Crophunt; “Challenges faced by Farmers during COVID-19 Pandemic and the opportunities for IT domain” Mr. Rajendra Bhat, Nisarg Farm.
Conference on healthcare domain was inaugurated by Chief Guest – Dr. Deepak Baid, President, AMC with the unveiling of the workshop book “Virtual Clinic – COVID-19 Scenario” in presence of Dr. Mukesh Gupta, Founder Director – Linest, Dr. Vikrant Desai, Radiologist, Program Committee Chairman – AMC, Dr. Suresh Shan, Innovation & Future Technologies BITS at Mahindra and Mahindra Financial Services Limited, Mr. Akshay Shah, CEO– iWeb Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Mr. Sudhanshu Ojha, General Manager, D-Link India Ltd and Dr. Vinita Gaikwad, Director, TIMSCDR.
Erudite sessions as – “IT in Healthcare – COVID-19 Crisis” by Mr. Balasubramanian Sundararaman, CEO – Natural Minds and “Use of IT for confronting the COVID-19 crisis – Sweden” by Mr. Daniel Eriksson, Founder NCHS – Nordic Center for Sustainable Healthcare were part of the event. Panel discussion on “How Information Technology is Changing My Practice in COVID Times and Beyond”, moderated by Dr. Mukesh Gupta and Dr. Vikrant Desai with eminent panelists – Dr. Sushmita Bhatnagar, President Elect, AMC, Dr. Saurabh Dani, Past President, AFG, Dr. Neeraj Bijlani, Consultant Orthopedic surgeon, Mr. Dhawal Bhatt, Administrator, Mr. Girish Koppar, Gen. Manager, IT Corporate Office,Wockhardt Hospital.
Doctors Workshop on “Virtual Clinic – COVID-19 Scenario” on 21 February 2021 was conducted on following key topics –
- What is telemedicine in healthcare?
- How website will help to set up virtual clinic?
- How to promote virtual clinic?
Speaker sessions, research paper presentations by scholars and workshop on Internet of Things (IoT) and R Programming were part of the pre-conference sessions were scheduled from 15-18 February 2021.
The pre-conference sessions were conducted with talks from eminent personalities from Industry as given below:
| Date | Name of the Industry Expert, Designation and Organization | Topic |
| 15/2/2021 | Mr. Balasubramanian Sundararaman, CEO – Natural Minds | IT in Healthcare – COVID-19 Crisis |
| 16/2/2021 | Mr. Mithil Gandhi, Co-founder – Ujjay | Marketing in Agriculture – Using IT |
| 17/2/2021 | Mr. Jishnu Radhakrishnan, Project Engineer, Pantech Solutions | AI in Agriculture |
| 18/2/2021 | Mr. Daniel Eriksson, Founder NCHS – Nordic Center for Sustainable Healthcare | Use of IT for confronting the COVID-19 crisis – Sweden |
| 18/02/2021 | Bo Stenberg, Department of Soil and Environment, SLU, Skara, Sweden | Precision agriculture for sustainability |
IoT workshop for the students was conducted by IoT team of TIMSCDR on 16 and 18 February 2021. During the workshop participants were introduced about the basics of IoT and interfacing of Sensors with Arduino.
Workshop on the R programming was conducted on 17 and 18 February 2021 to make the students delve into Data Science with R programming wherein students were taught about basics of R and how it can be used for Data Analytics.
ICAIM-2021 Proceeding published 80 research papers on inter-disciplinary subjects, selected after a rigorous review process. Research papers were presented before the distinguished professionals from the sectors of Agriculture, Healthcare and IT. Following is the list of professionals who chaired the research paper presentations of ICAIM-2021:
- Sudhir Dhage, Professor, Sardar Patel Institute of Technology
- Bharati VeerendraWukkadada, Assistant Professor, IT Department, K. J. Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research.
- Manish Deshmukh,Assistant Professor & HOD, Department of Commerce, Sonopant Dandekar Arts, V. S. Apte Commerce & M. H. Mehta Science College, Palghar
- Aparna Deshmukh, Head, Biotechnology, Thakur College of Science & Commerce
- Dr Kriti Waghmare,Assistant Professor,Deccan Education Society’s Navinchandra Mehta Institute of Technology and Development
Best research paper award was received by
1st Prize: “Identifying Mental Health using Image and Color Psychology” authored byMs. Nikhita Lomate and Mr. Kaushik Gawad
2nd Prize: “The Social Distancing- ID card” authored byMr. Anurag Singh and Mr. Mahesh Shinde
Various competitions such as Codathoan, Digital Collage, Digital Story – COVID-19, Treasure Hunt using latest IT Tools were arranged for students as part of the conference.