The first international conference organised by the computer science department of PES School of Engineering, South Campus — ‘RETCOMP 13’ — was a learning experience.

It was attended not only by students of the college, but also students from various parts of the country. During the conference, papers were presented by students and professors. Many students from states like Rajasthan, UP and Jammu and Kashmir attended the conference and presented their analysis and research on various subjects.

The conference was held with the objective of bringing together computer scientists working in various fields and engineers in the industry, who face problems which require more research.

Rupal Bhargava, who is pursuing her MTech in computer science at Banasthali Vidyapith, Jaipur, presented her paper on web mining, which is a sub-area of data mining.

“I have been to a few other conferences and have found them to be pretty useful as far as exposure is concerned. I learn about new problems and their solutions at such conferences. As I wish to pursue my PhD, I hope that this will introduce me to new areas of computer science and give me ideas for research,” she says.

Shalini M, an MTech student in computer science at Oxford College of Engineering, was researching image processing. She says that she learnt a lot from the conference and found it useful.

“I have attended all three days of the conference and I found it very well-organised — it does not seem like the first such event to be held here. The speakers were well informed,” explains Shalini.

Shabana Nargis Rasool, a prospective PhD candidate who is currently working at the department of computer science, Islamic University of Science and Technology, Kashmir, also attended the conference.
Her research areas are embedded systems, image processing, data mining and artificial intelligence. She attended the conference to learn about the problems of the industry.

“I am planning to pursue my PhD, but haven’t registered yet. I am searching for topics and am interested to know what problems are being encountered by the industry. I think it is necessary for students to attend these kinds of conferences, else they may find that their research is on an unworthy topic, or is not substantial enough. A conference like this also helps in idea generation,” she states.

Students of the college shared the same sentiment . “The speakers introduced us to issues in practical fields such as e-governance and also spoke about the various emerging problems in the field,” says Maithri Hegde, a final-year BE student.