International Conference on
Sustainable Civil Infra-structure (ICSCI-2014)
An International Conference on Sustainable Civil Infrastructure (ICSCI-2014) was held on 17-18, October 2014 at Hitex Exhibition Center, Hyderabad. The conference was organized by the India section of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad in association with Build 4 India-2014. The conference was held in three parallel sessions with five theme topics under which a total of 120+ technical papers were presented. There were 21 Keynote Presentations by eminent researchers across the world. The list of keynote speakers can be found in the following Table.
The inaugural function was started at 9:30 am of 17th by welcome extended by Dr. Munwar Basha, who invited Dr. Sireesh S, secre-tary of ASCE IS and organizing secretary of the conference, Prof. GL Sivakumar Babu, President of ASCE IS and Chairman of the con-ference, Prof. KVL Subramaniam, Co-chairman of the conference, Mr. Sambit, Hitex, and the chief guest of the inaugural Mr. VB Gadgil, CEO and MD of L&T for Hyderabad Metro Rail on to the dais. Prof. Babu presided over the function.
Prof. Babu invited all the dignitaries on the dais to lit the lamp of knowledge followed by invocation prayer. He invited Dr. Sireesh to give his welcome address. Dr. Sireesh has invited and extended warm welcome to all the Keynote speakers, international and national delegates, student participants, sponsors, Hitex team, Kenes exhibitions team, press and media. He has briefed about the conference statistic, themes, and motivation of the conference. He announced that a total of 314 abstracts were received out of which 235 abstracts were only accepted for full length paper sub-mission. A total of 150 technical papers were finally accepted after a peer review process. A conference proceedings in the form of CD ROM and conference booklet were prepared. Prof. Subramaniam has mentioned that the conference is timely and mentioned the importance of such conferences in the present sce-nario. Prof. Babu extended warm welcome to all the participants and explained the proceedings of the conference and parallel ses-sions. He requested all the delegates to participate in the sessions and deliberations and discussions. He later introduced the Chief Guest, Mr. VB Gadgil who has agreed to grace the occasion at a short notice. Mr. Gadgil has released conference proceedings and the conference program booklet and distributed to all the digni-taries on the dais. Mr. Gadgil, in his address, pressed the need for sustainability in all aspects of Indian infrastructure development. He noted that India is in phase transformation and need solutions to build its infrastructure at affordable cost, yet with high quality. He pointed few steps towards sustainability development in large projects. Mr. Gadgil wished a successful technical sessions ahead. Prof. Babu presented a memento to Mr. Gadgil as a token of remembrance. The inaugural event was concluded with a formal vote of thanks proposed by Er. Anchuri, Treasurer, ASCE IS SR.
Right after a brief tea break, three parallel technical sessions were started on Sustainable Structural Systems, Sustainable Geotechnical Systems and Sustainable Transportation Systems.
Board of Directors Meeting of ASCE India Section was held on 17th October at 5:30pm. Presidents of ASCE India Section Regions, President, Secretary and Treasurer of ASCE India Section have participated in the business meeting.
Annual General Body Meeting of ASCE India Section:
The AGM of ASCE India Section was held on 17th October 2014 at 6:00 pm as proposed earlier. The ASCE members participating at the conference, BOD members were present in the meeting. Prof. Babu has conducted the AGM. He welcomed all the members of ASCE and friends. He has briefed about the general function of ASCE IS for the last one year and indicated that the section is doing excellent work towards improving the membership base, student activities by installing student chapters at several engineering col-leges across the country. Prof. Babu appreciated the sincere efforts from each region leadership for achieving these remark-able numbers. Dr. Sireesh has presented the annual report of the section. He has pointed that the technical activities of all the regions have improved by two fold from its previous year. The India section has now installed over 10 student chapters across the country and two of them are in the process of getting recognized as International Student groups. He has appreciated the activities carried by the student groups at VIT- Vellore and NITK-Suratkal for the year 2013-2014. He has mentioned about the India section’s close association with Indian Concrete Institute’s Hyderabad Chap-ter and Indian Geotechnical Society. Dr. Anbazhagan has pre-sented the budget of India section for the year 2013-14. He men-tioned that the contributions from ASCE HQ were on time and the funds were equally distributed to four regions and the section. He requested all the regions to submit their audited budgets to the section to compile and send it to the ASCE.
Mr. Sandip Kumar Deb, President ASCE IS ER has suggested to hold such international conferences on an annual basis. Prof. Babu and others seconded the proposal and suggested that it would nice to have one international event every year and would be ideal to hold by the next section leaders. Mr. KP Pradeep, Secretary of ASCE IS SR has pointed out that the VIT student group is organiz-ing the second edition of International Symposium of Civil Engi-neering in 2015. He mentioned that the subsequent editions may be organized at any other student chapter nationwide to make it an annual event. The AGM was concluded by the formal vote of thanks proposed by Prof. Babu.
The second day of the conference has started with three parallel sessions in the forenoon and four parallel sessions in the afternoon on sustainable structures, geosystems, environmental systems and architecture and infrastructure. The conference was well attended by more than 200 national and International delegates.
The conference was concluded by a valedictory session at 5:00pm on 18th October, 2014. The conference organizing committee, student volunteers, delegates, student delegates and sponsors have participated and expressed their views on the conference. It was mentioned that the conference was very meticulously orga-nized. Delegates expressed their appreciation of the well-designed technical content and hospitality.
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