New Delhi: The students’ names were called out and they walked on to the stage, where the director stood waiting to hand them their degrees. The director delivered his traditional address too. The ceremony had all the trappings of a regular convocation, but it was actually just the closest-possible alternative IITs could organise for students amid a pandemic.
Final-year IIT students in Bombay and Gandhinagar — robbed of their precious last few months in college, like thousands of others, by the Covid-19 lockdown — found some measure of solace Sunday as they were “handed out” their degrees in a live animation ceremony.
The participants were 3D avatars of the actual students and the ceremony was beamed live to their computers. And it created quite a buzz among students, who took to social media to post glimpses from the ceremony.
IIT Bombay holds its 58th convocation ceremony;
Awards Degrees to Students' Virtual avatars.@iitbombay pic.twitter.com/QGnercGhD2
— All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) August 23, 2020
Convocated! https://t.co/gEqPb2yg9x with Honors in Mechanical Engineering, IIT Bombay, Class of 2020?
Grateful to my family, friends, teachers, well-wishers and this institute for helping me reach where I am today. Thank you to everyone who supported me throughout this journey. pic.twitter.com/xS1Ra3WJBS— Debanjali Chatterjee (@_debanjali_) August 23, 2020
Graduated, on 58th convocation of IIT Bombay.
My avatar receiving award of a degree as a DAAD scholar. We can say the future is here. We can work on a similar model for Nepalese universities for different events.@moenepal @DAADIndia @IndiaInNepal @RONBupdates pic.twitter.com/0bIr4HrM85— Akash deo (@talk2sohan) August 24, 2020
“Even in online mode, the institute made sure to retain the feeling of the graduation ceremony for its students, right from the academic procession by the faculty members to invocation, Convocation addresses by the director and the chief guest, award of degrees and medals to their digital self, and convocation pledge followed by individual congratulatory messages from the IIT faculty and staff in various Indian languages,” a statement from IIT-Gandhinagar said. “The entire event was streamed online on IIT’s YouTube channel and Facebook page.”
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‘A special place’
While the 3D-avatar element may be a relative novelty, several institutes have been organising online convocations as educational institutions across India remain shut down on account of social-distancing regulations.
The International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Bengaluru, a deemed-to-be university partially funded by Karnataka government, held its convocation online on 5 July.
During the convocation ceremony, IIIT Bengaluru Director Professor S. Sadagopan had said that “convocation holds a special place in the hearts of the graduating students.
A day earlier, the Indian Institute of Health Management Research, Jaipur, a private institute, also held its convocation online.
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