Dr. Balakrishnan Shankar, Associate Dean, School of Engineering, Amritapuri campus, delivered a keynote talk titled “Amrita- Technology for Society” at RTDD 2018 International Conference on Rural Technology Development and Delivery: RUTAG and its Synergy with other initiatives, held at IIT Delhi from March 9^th to 11^th. The organizers of the event were IIT Delhi and the office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India.

The objective of the conference was to demonstrate how rural problems can be treated as research challenges, so that main stream researchers take interest in order to get quality publications. These publications would help in documentation and awareness generation throughout the world, as well as satisfying criteria for career advancement, while solving socially relevant problems. It is expected that such activities among the younger generation would make them more conscious about grass root level social issues, enabling them to bring new technological solutions in the form of appropriate designs or entrepreneurship models for the benefit of the rural masses.