Students Achievements

Mr Lakshman Thatikonda, a 3rd year BBA student of SRM University-AP, has started his own business venture (TalentCrew), incubated at the Hatchlab Research Centre– The technology and livelihood business incubator of SRM University-AP.

The talent crew is a skill-based startup. They are one of India’s largest multi-category customised gifting companies, providing one of the best-curated collections of festival merchandise, gifts, handicrafts, wedding cards, carvings & personalised products for all occasions & festivals. TalentCrew has a global footprint with customers spanning 20 plus countries and the capability to deliver gifts to over 50 countries and 300 plus cities in India. Mr Lakshman started this organisation on the principles of creativity, agility, and social responsibility.

Over the next few years, TalentCrew envisions exploring and developing new products and services that will actively expand business while touching social responsibility.

Experience at Hatchlab Research Centre

The Hatchlab research centre aims to support SRM E-Cell’s mission of developing entrepreneurial talent and fostering the commercialisation of new ideas ventures. “Working with Hatchlab research centre was always a great experience. Here I found the fresh start for the innovation, and here the programme is very well structured with the right blend of practice,” says Mr Lakshman. “The best thing about this programme is that it allows me to learn while still being employed. And I always feel thankful for Dr Lakshmana Rao sir, for motivating me on every stand that I take, and Udayan Bakshi sir, for giving me such a wonderful opportunity” he added.

Skilling up is always encouraged at SRM University-AP. With cutting-edge technology and premier instructors provided to support curious, enthusiastic, and innovative minds, skilling up is fun, fantastic, and comes with fabulous prizes too.

In the Metaverse Spark AR Hackathon conducted by Meta (Facebook), D Yogesh and Yash Agarwal have bagged the winner’s and runner’s up prizes of $300 and $200 respectively. Not just that, 154 of our students would take away from this competition lucrative goodies and participation certificates for their idea submissions.

The CR&CS department organized workshops and trained our students specifically for this event alongside their regular upskilling for placements and other hackathons and contests.

Over a huge number of students who participated in this contest from different corners of the globe, the students of SRMAP walking away with the prizes make a sizable chunk.

We extend our heartfelt wishes to all the participants and hope to see them ace every challenge they face with the knowledge imparted and the skills honed here.

Testimonials

“It was my first hackathon that I participated in and being a part of the SRM AP Hackathon Club has helped and motivated me greatly. Having an interest in AR/VR, this AR hackathon offered me a good opportunity to learn more about the technology. I attended a workshop, conducted by Meta where they introduced us to Augmented Reality. I learned how Instagram filters were made from scratch, and, in addition, I gained technical knowledge about Augmented Reality. I made an Instagram filter that was based on the PUBG Mobile game.

As part of the hackathon, I would like to thank the CR&CS department for the smooth conduction of the hackathon. Also, I would like to thank Priyanka ma’am (link here) and Raghunathan sir (link here) for their time and assistance in the process. I’m very happy that I have acquired a new skill and looking forward to contributing to the Metaverse! Explore the 4.0 technologies”

-Yogesh D

“The hackathon was about creating an AR effect. I made an AR effect on the theme based upon the popularly known web series “SQUID GAMES”.

A special thanks to one of my friends, S. Lokesh who helped me a lot to make me understand how to make an AR effect. I would like to thank Dr T. Raghunathan and Dr Priyanka from the SRM-AP Hackathon club for encouraging and guiding me to participate in this competition.

I am eagerly waiting for many more Hackathons wherein I can participate under the guidance of the SRM-AP hackathon club. Winning doesn’t matter, but participation matters”

-Yash Aggarwal

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There is nothing more satisfying for a university to see its students achieving their dreams, scaling greater heights. What Sourav Sanyal and Miran Junaidi started as a curious, entrepreneurial adventure during their undergraduate studies has turned out to be a robust business plan attracting investors across the world.

OurEye.ai was founded by the duo to provide an automated, end-to-end video intelligence solution for enterprises to monitor surveillance cameras in real-time, leveraging pre-existing CCTV-IP infrastructure. The founders secured an angel investment of $1,20,000 during the initial phase itself from top VC’s and angels in India. On this date, the company has attracted another renowned global accelerator and Investor Y-Combinator with an investment offer of $500K (about INR 3.7 Cr) in OurEye.ai. This remarkable achievement also takes the total amount invested in the company close to $620K (INR 4.7 Cr) in a little more than 12 months since inception. No wonder the duo is celebrating with all their hearts.

Y Combinator (YC) is one of the top American silicon-valley-based startup accelerators that funds the top companies of the world. YC has programmes, resources, and a community that supports founders throughout the company’s life. Airbnb, DoorDash, Stripe, Dropbox, CoinBase, Reddit, Instacart & Ginkgo Bioworks are a few of the prominent unicorns that were part of the past YC collaborations.

“With the beginning of 2022, we embark on a new journey of Bringing Cameras to Life and creating analytics for the offline world with the help of billions of CCTV infrastructure that has existed for over a decade. Now with YC’s support, we wish to do more,” said Miran Junaidi, Co-Founder of the Company.

“It has been the most exciting ride of my life. Starting up with OurEye.ai while in university to graduating a couple of months ago with a major dream come true. We have learnt a lot and learnt it the hard way that ‘Idea isn’t king, execution is’. It has been the best couple of years, and there could not be a better time to start up. After testing and executing the waters on the national market, we are now aiming to expand in the global market and grow at lightspeed.” said Sourav Sanyal, Founder of the Company.

“Y-Combinator picks just about 70 or fewer startups from India over 2 batches every year. This is a major milestone for our students and their startup. Miran and Sourav were extremely passionate about their company from the initial days. That is what motivated the world’s largest startup accelerator to believe in their startup. I am confident that investors and customers around the world will soon reinforce that belief and propel them to unicorn status,” said Dr Sathyanarayanan, President of the University.

“We take immense pride and happiness in our student’s achievements, and this is still just the beginning. I am certain that this milestone will continue to inspire not only our current students but also all the students out there with entrepreneurial ambitions. Here, at SRMAP, our primary focus is to bring out the best among our students, be it research, entrepreneurship or higher studies,” said Prof V S Rao, Vice-chancellor, SRM University-AP.

Being a researcher demands commitment, sustained effort, and a high level of inspiration. Ms Lakshmi Bhargavi from 3rd-year Computer Science Engineering has presented a paper titled “Application of distributed back propagation neural network for dynamic real-time bidding” at the 11th International Advanced Computing Conference (IACC-2021), hosted by the University of Malta, Europe. It is a reputed conference indexed in Scopus and DBLP, having H-index 25.

The research is based on the backend of ad placement on websites which involves finances. The process involves finding the best deal between the dealer and the supplier. In the present system, the bid is prefixed, thereby reducing the possibility of optimal budget utilisation. In comparison, Ms Lakshmi’s research uses an ML algorithm, which is dynamic and learns from the previous bids. This research has resulted in 15% lower costs for the suppliers, thereby saving a lot of money and resulting in a better system.

Abstract — Programmatic buying, popularly known as real-time bidding (RTB), is a key ascendancy in online advertising. While data has become essential for targeting and ad performance, data businesses have become difficult to differentiate due to their proliferation, as well as limitations of attribution. This provides an opportunity for Big Data practitioners to leverage this data and use machine learning to improve efficiency and make more profits. In such an opportunity, the research came up with an application of a machine learning algorithm, distributed back propagation neural network, d-bpnn, to predict bid prices in a real-time bidding system. This paper depicts how d-bpnn is used to achieve less eCPM for advertisers while preserving win rate and budget utilisation.

The 11th International Advanced Computing Conference (IACC-2021) was hosted by the University of Malta, Europe, with an H-index of 25. The conference is indexed in Scopus and DBLP and in collaboration with Springer. A few selected papers will be published in SCOPUS/SCI Indexed journals. The presentation was held on 19th December 2021. It was an ideal platform for people to share views and experiences in Futuristic Research Techniques.

Let’s hear from Ms Lakshmi:

My university has been with me in every step taken towards this conference. I would like to thank the mentoring of Dr Priyanka throughout the writing and presentation of the paper. The immense support of SRM AP management, my professors, HOD, Pro VC sir and VC sir made me reach the level to write a paper confidently and show my knowledge to the world.
I feel honoured to present a good paper at a global conference. The experience and connections I made through this conference are priceless. It gave me new insights into several other technical domains. I believe I gave my best at the unique opportunity given to me and hopefully will continue to deliver good work in future too.

The summit will start in April 2022 in Kathmandu
G Ram Dheeraj, third-year Civil Engineering at SRM University-AP, has been selected to climb Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain. The adventurous peak climbing expedition will begin in April 2022. He has already climbed three major peaks in the Himalayan range and is selected for the summit by the Asian Trekking Pvt Ltd. The mountains that he has set foot on are Shitindhar Peak (5358 m), Friendship Peak (5287 m) and Deo Tibba Peak (6001 m). He has also completed a mountaineering course from ABVIMAS in Kulu Manali. Ram Dheeraj, who hopes to reach the summit of Mt. Everest through rigorous preparation, seeks kind sponsors to come forward and fund the expenses of ₹27 lacs. Prof V S Rao, Vice-Chancellor; Prof Narayana Rao, Pro-Vice-Chancellor; and the management of SRM University-AP, congratulated Ram Dheeraj for his exceptional enthusiasm to conquer extremely high altitudes.

“As an undergraduate student, I initially faced many difficulties selecting the area of interest, analysing and organising a paper, and academic writing skills. The continuous support from faculty at SRM university-AP helped me overcome these issues. This achievement would have been impossible without the support and efforts of my faculty mentors. My heartful gratitude to Dr Shubh Lakshmi madam and Dr Tousif Khan N sir for their kind support and encouragement in research work. I am grateful to start my research career under their guidance. Also, the management encourages and supports us every time in every possible way by providing scholarships.”
–Pendem Manoj Sai

A paper titled “Exhaustive Search Approach to Place PV in Distribution Network for Power Loss Minimization” has been awarded STEM-Research Society Best Paper Award in the recently held conference, Soft Computing: Theories and Applications (SoCTA)-2021, at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Kota on the dates December 17-19, 2021. The authors of the paper are- P Manoj Sai, M Dhana Sai Baji, Dr Shubh Lakshmi, and Dr Tousif Khan Nizami from the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, School of Engineering and Sciences, SRM University-AP, Andhra Pradesh, India. The paper is selected for publication in Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, Springer (Indexed in SCOPUS).

This paper proposes an exhaustive search approach to determine the best location and size of PV placement for power loss minimisation of radial distribution networks. In this approach, the network power loss is determined by placing PV in each location, one at a time, and the size of PV in the same location is varied between a set minimum and maximum limits. The combination of location and size of PV, which provide the minimum network power loss, can be the best location and size of PV for power loss minimisation of radial distribution networks. The forward-backwards sweep load flow algorithm with the PV model is used to determine the power loss for each combination of location and size of PV.

The paper was presented by Mr P Manoj Sai, a BTech EEE 4th year student from SRM University-AP, Andhra Pradesh. He is thrilled to receive the best paper award and extended his gratitude to Dr Tousif Khan N, the Head of the Department, and Dr Shubh Lakshmi, Assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, for their continuous guidance. Further, he extended his thanks to the management and Pro Vice-chancellor of SRM University-AP for providing financial support.

Mallarapu Tanoogna, a third-year civil engineering student at SRM University-AP, has excelled at National Indoor Archery Championship-2021, winning three gold medals and finishing 8th in the National Open Ranking, representing Andhra Pradesh. The National Field Archery Development & Welfare Association in Salem, Tamilnadu, hosted the inaugural National Indoor Archery Championship-2021 on 25th and 26th December. Archery players from the South Indian states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra and Telangana participated in the competition.

Ms Tanoogna, representing Andhra Pradesh from SRM AP has been training to participate in indoor and outdoor archery championships for a year. She won gold medals in the Senior Recurve women individual, women team and mixed team categories and is ranked 8th in the national archery rankings.

“It is a pride moment that our student wins gold medals and opens national ranking,” said university Vice-Chancellor-Prof V S Rao, congratulating Ms Tanoogna. Registrar-Dr R Premkumar, Deans, and faculty members congratulated Ms Tanoogna and promised her all the support for attending more national and international championships in the future.

Rallapalli Bhavana Durga, a budding researcher from BSc Biology at SRM University-AP, earns an international internship at Harvard Medical School. The six-month internship will focus on bioengineering, cancer, and other biomedical research. The days at Harvard Medical School will impart an understanding of the development of cancer in an in-vitro model fabricated by the bioengineering approach.

The Office of International Relations and Higher Studies guided Ms Bhavana throughout the application process. Every eligible student who applies for study abroad programmes is given orientation and motivation to bridge the attainment gap. They share information about various research/internships/projects with interested students. Ms Bhavana qualified the eligibility criteria for Harvard Medical School, which focuses on Tissue engineering and other Biomedical engineering fields. After completing the screening, she received a welcome e-mail for the internship at Dr Shiladitya Sengupta & Haelin Jang’s lab in Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. During the internship period, she will be involved in i) research-related activities involving the hands-on discovery of new biological pathways in cancer metastasis and (ii) writing for publications.

“I have received a lot of support from my professors and Dr Swetha Pasupuleti, Associate Director, International Relations”, says Ms Bhavana. “From the beginning, all my professors have been very encouraging, and their suggestions and criticisms were constructive. Dr Swetha has been very supportive and reassuring during the application process, taking away my inhibitions. I feel excited about my internship”, she added.

To tackle barriers to postgraduate education, SRM University-AP has designed ambitious programmes that improve the admission of students to global institutions. International Relations and Higher Studies department ensure that all students and faculty on campus are supported and assisted in gaining access to resources in order to achieve the vision and mission of SRM University-AP in becoming a multidisciplinary global university.

Taking your knowledge and solving real-world problems is the true intention of education. SRM University-AP is delighted to see Pavan Kumar Chinta achieve this aspiration and obtain $1200 Bounty from Microsoft Bug Bounty Program on November 13, 2021. The
Bounty of $1200 was presented to Pavan by Mr Jason Pessemier, Microsoft Security Program Manager.

Pavan Kumar Chinta has keen enthusiasm with Cyber Security as specialization in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Microsoft is not the only company that Pavan has managed to impress.

He has also reported Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) a high severity bug , in Mercedes Benz portal, and Groww by finding Broken Authentication and Security Misconfiguration. He was acknowledged by both the organisations and received swags from Groww.

Pavan has spared no space in his investigation of bugs. He was acknowledged by NCIIPC (A unit of NTRO), the Government of India, for discovering Sensitive Information Disclosure like PNR, Name, Mobile Number, etc., of the passengers in IRCTC’s authorised partner. He has also reported bug issues to GeeksforGeeks and Google.

Pavan expressed “Prof. T Ragunathan, (Associate Dean (Engineering) – School of Engineering and Sciences), guided me and encouraged to study the University’s Cyber Security structures as well. With constant guidance from Dr Priyanka, Assistant Professor, Computer Science Engineering, I was able to work with pentesting tools and develop reconnaissance methodologies. This lockdown helped me to discover and build myself. His short-term goal is to secure MAMAA (Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google’s parent company, Alphabet).

This is an excellent start for a 3rd-year student. We hope to see the series of security risk investigations that began here to stay with him, and that he goes on to make tremendous achievements and makes the internet a safer space.

Dr Anil K Suresh’s innovative research has been brought into the limelight by the revered weekly magazine Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), published by the American Chemical Society. Dr Anil K Suresh, Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, and his team from SRM University-AP recently developed a see-through transparent (with 85% above transmittance) biotemplate which they derived from the fish scale wastes to substitute the extensive usage of eco-unfriendly disposal plastic cuvettes for UV-Visible Spectroscopy measurements in the spectrum of 350-900 nm.

UV-Vis spectroscopy is a versatile analytical tool used to examine the nature of various synthetic, biological and clinical molecules for pharmaceutical and environmental applications. The team members demonstrated the practical on-biotemplate analysis of diverse analytes such as DNA, proteins, nanoparticles, organic dyes, bacteria, BSA assay and dye-degradations. Dr Anil K Suresh owns the copyrights for this pathbreaking invention by being granted an Indian patent. This work was published in the prestigious Journal “Green Chemistry” by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Read the full paper here.

Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), which is widely known to feature articles of the best professional and technical innovative research work and analysis in the fields of chemistry and chemical engineering, has acknowledged Dr Anil’s research by allowing it little room in their magazine in Volume 99, Issue 36 (Read the news here). C&EN includes information on recent news and research in chemistry and chemical engineering along with career and employment information, business and industry news, government and policy news, funding in these fields, and special reports.

“The magazine is very celebrated among researchers across the world. It is a great honour for my team and me to be featured in the magazine. This news magazine usually picks only top nature cell science publications among thousands, and My team and I are feeling great to be one of them,” said Dr Anil. Dr Anil further said that it would not be possible to carry out such prominent research work in a newly built establishment without the constant support from the management of SRM University-AP, Andhra Pradesh. He has profoundly thanked Dr P Sathyanarayanan, President; Prof V S Rao, Vice-Chancellor; Prof D Narayana Rao, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, for their kind help and cooperation.

The University Management congratulated Dr Anil K Suresh on his achievement. Dr Sathyanarayanan said, “It is indeed a proud moment for the university to be featured on C&EN. I compliment Dr Anil and his team on their tireless work.” “Dr Anil and his team have executed an extraordinary work towards a green environment which should be emphasised in international journals. The Team’s dedication towards their research is commendable,” said Prof V S Rao. Prof D Narayana Rao opined that Dr Anil K Suresh is one of the most talented young biologists in the nation. “I have personally known him for some time being and working with him for a few years. Dr Anil is devoted biologist and pride of the university,” asserted Prof D Narayana Rao.