A REPORT ON

INTERNATIONAL E-CONFERENCE ON FOLDSCOPE AND ITS APPLICATIONS

(INECFAIA 20-21 JUNE, 2020)

The Department of Zoology, Cotton University successfully organised an International E-Conference on ‘Foldscope and Its Applications’ in collaboration with eleven other renowned Universities and Colleges across the country on 20 and 21 June, 2020 with Dr. Arun Dev Sharma from Lyalpur Khalsa College, Jalandhar as the convener. Prof. B. C. Goswami, Honourable Vice Chancellor, Cotton University and Dr. Anjana Singha Naorem, Assistant Professor, Department of Zoology, were the chief patron and organising secretary respectively, of the e-conference from Cotton University.The e-conference was attended by 134 participants from 44 Institutes of the country.

The 2 days long E-conference was held on Google Meet platform and commenced with the keynote address given by Prof. Dr. B. C. Goswami, Honourable Vice Chancellor, Cotton University who encouraged the participants to engage more in scientific thinking and research  and also elaborated on the perks of using instruments like the Foldscope in today’s world. This was followed by 2 other addresses given by Prof. Dr. Buchade, Principal, Abasaheb Garware Arts and Science College, Pune and Dr. Uday Kumar, Principal, University College, Mangalore.

The Chief Guest of the E-conference was Dr. Manu Prakash, Prof. Stanford University, USA. Dr. Manu Prakash is the inventor of Foldscope, which is an origami based optical microscope which is inexpensive and durable, bringing the microscopic world to ones doorsteps. In his address, the Indian-born scientist described the future implementations of Foldscope and further goals to make it available to all. In his inspirational talk, he also enlightened the participants about the upcoming endeavours taken up by his team. Participants were excited to hear and interact with him live. Dr. L.S. Shashidhara, Prof., Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, was the Guest of Honour for the conference.

This was followed by rigorous talk session delivered by ten eminent invited speakers from different fields of work. The talks were from diverse fields with the speakers sharing their research works using Foldscope which ranged from observing microscopic fungi and bacteria in food, use of nanomaterials as antimicrobial agents, estrus detection in buffaloes using the salivary fern patterns, using the Foldscope for microbial water analysis as well as its use to identify water ciliates as bioindicators of water quality. Dr. Anjana Singha Naorem from Department of Zoology, Cotton University was one of the speakers who detailed on her work on the diagnosis of bug feeding using Foldscope as a tool.

The oral and poster presentations were actively participated by students and faculties of different Colleges and Universities of the country. There were a total of twelve oral presentations and sixteen poster presentations. The Best Oral Presentation Award was bagged by Ms. Parul Gurjar and Ms. Madhavi Kanade jointly and Appreciation award was given to Dr. Debulman Syiemiong and Dr. Sharda Gadale. Two research scholars of Department of Zoology, Cotton University, Ms. Santana Saikia and Ms. Anandita Buragohain also bagged the Best Poster Presentation Award independently along with Ms. Valencia D’Souza and the Appreciation award for poster presentation was given to Ms. Subhashini Srivastava. The e-conference received words of praise and positive feedback from all the participants.