The TechNext India 2018 awards for Amrita School of Engineering (ASE), Coimbatore, were conferred by Computer Society of India (CSI) Mumbai chapter and IIT Bombay on February 11, 2018, at IIT Bombay, through its Free & Open Source Software in Education (FOSSEE) interdisciplinary initiative under MHRD National Mission on Education using ICT. Prof. Prashant R. Nair, Vice-Chairman & Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore campus, received the awards on behalf of Amrita from Dr. Deepak B. Phatak, Padma Shri awardee, and IIT Bombay (IITB) CSE Professor. 

Amrita School of Engineering (ASE), Coimbatore, also received the title ‘Best Institute of the Year’ for the innovative pedagogical approaches and tools for Computer Science & Engineering (CSE) departmental curricular initiatives such as early adoption of Computational Thinking and Problem Solving for engineering freshmen, competitive programming and organizing of ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC).

Other awards received were ‘Best Faculty of the Year’. The title was won by Dr. K.V. Shriram, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore campus, in the category ‘Authoring Books on Contemporary Subjects’ and Prof. Prashant R. Nair in the category ‘Evangelizing and Contributing to Spread of Knowledge Across Several Institutions’. Dr. T. V. Prabhakar, CSE Professor from IIT Kanpur was another awardee in this category. 

Being a prolific book publisher, Dr. K.V. Shriram has produced 30 books in the last 5 years with reputed publishers such as Alpha Science (UK), Narosa, and S Chand. Prof. Prashant R.Nair’s significant outreach through leadership positions in professional bodies, including CSI National Student Coordinator (NSC) and active role in organizing premier student events such as ACM ICPC and Anokha Techfest at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, made him win the title. 

TechNext India 2018 was inaugurated by Dr. Devang Khakhar, Director, IIT Bombay. The conference had Dr. Kannan Moudgalya, Professor, IITB and lead investigator for the national mission-mode ‘Spoken Tutorials’ project as organizing chair and Dr. S. S. Mantha, Former Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), as award jury member.