The 8th Annual Conference of Cognitive Science (ACCS8) organized virtually by the Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham’s Mind Brain Center and brought together researchers and students from different scientific communities on areas related to Cognitive Science and neuroscience on January 20th to 22nd, 2022. This year’s ACCS conference had experts from many fields within Cognitive Science and domains such as psychology, neurology, neuroscience, psychiatry, neurosurgery, computer science, human-computer interaction, linguistics, philosophy of mind and ArtificialIntelligence.
Prof. Shyam Diwakar, Director of the Amrita Mind Brain Center, commenced the event on Thursday, January 20th, 2022, with a welcome address and introduced the conference to the 698 attendees, authors and invited professors at the event.
The inaugural ceremony was graced by Sampujya Swami Amritaswarupananda Puri, President, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Vice-Chairman, Mata Amritanandamayi Math, who delivered the benedictory address. Swami Amritaswarupananda told the experts and attendees “Knowledge is not objective; it is subjective in nature. The well-spring of knowledge, which the Rishis call, jnana, vijnana is an inner revelation” He said, “when you fall in love with your work, a new dimension opens up within”. He urged the scientists to investigate possibilities of bringing the wisdom of the ancient seers into modern thoughts and create a beautiful blend of science and spirituality.
Prof. Bipin Nair, Dean of Life Sciences and School of Biotechnology at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, introduced the recently initiated Amrita Mind Brain Center to the conference gathering, as an initiative by the Chancellor Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi (Amma), for attracting the diverse scientific and research community working on various topics related to brain and mind sciences. Prof. Bapi Raju S from International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad, delivered the Conference Chair’s address, expressing that ACCS was a platform for researchers all over the globe to share a plethora of knowledge in the cognitive sciences, neuroscience and field. Prof. Anand Kumar A, Head of Neurology at Amrita Hospital and Vice Principal, Amrita School of Medicine, spoke on a new idea biospaciology and how the brain perceives sleep-wake patterns, and the surroundings. He added that as cognitive and neuroscientists we need to work together “United we stand, divided we fall”. Inaugural session was concluded by Dr. Asha Vijayan, Assistant Professor, School of Biotechnology by providing a vote of thanks speech
The conference had invited keynote lectures of experts, Prof. Nandini Chatterjee Singh of Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (New Delhi), Prof. Claudia Gandini Wheeler-Kingshott of University College London (UK)’s Institute of Neurology, Prof. Kenji Doya of Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (Japan), Prof. Egidio D’Angelo of University of Pavia (Italy), Prof. Ned Block of New York University (USA) and Prof. Bhavani Rao of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (Amritapuri campus).
As part of the event, a fireside chat “NeuroBytes” on neuroscience, consciousness and other topics were organized by Prof. Nithin Nagaraj of National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru and Prof. Veeky Baths, BITS Pilani Goa campus.
As part of the conference, Amrita Mind Brain Center also organized a pan India drawing competition “Brain Art” on the theme “Mind and Brain” for all age groups. 479 submissions were received and the winners were announced online at the valedictory function held on January 22 at 5:30pm.
The participants had an interaction session with the keynote speakers and discussed the recent trends and research initiatives including neuroimaging technologies to strengthen their scientific data collection strategies and long-term analysis. The organizing committee along with Shyam Diwakar from Amrita and Bapi Raju from IIIT Hyderabad also included professors Krishna Prasad Miyapuram of IIT Gandhinagar and Narayanan Srinivasan of IIT Kanpur.
