IIT Bombay's revolutionary VR convocation will let your avatar get a degree, chill with friends around campus

Conducting convocations over video conference is the new normal in a post-COVID world. But IIT Bombay graduates will have the opportunity to be at their convocation and receive the degree from the Director or Chief Guest — all of this in home-grown virtual reality (VR). The students can not only see their personalised avatars receive their degrees as their names are called out. They can also hang out in the hostels, canteen and around the campus and catch up with friends and teachers. You can even take a stroll down the road and explore the campus 'virtually' one more time.

The 58th convocation of IIT Bombay will be held on August 23, 1.30 pm onwards in "a virtual reality mode" due to the safety measures during the ongoing pandemic. "Our professors and students have worked hard over the last two months to create a first-ever, to the best of our knowledge, a virtual reality based e-convocation where personalised avatars of each student will be collecting their degrees or medals from the personalised avatar of the Director and Chief Guest," wrote Dr Subhasis Chaudhuri, Director, IIT Bombay, on his official Facebook page. "Dr Duncan Haldane, co-recipient of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics, and a Professor of Physics at Princeton University will be the Chief Guest during the ceremony and Stephen A Schwarzman, Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder of Blackstone, world-renowned investor and philanthropist will be the Guest of Honour," he added.

You can catch it on television as the event will be broadcast live on DD Sahyadri channel so that students, relatives, and friends, even in remote areas without internet access, can watch on a large screen with family. "We thought it best to arrange such a VR-convocation for the graduating students as we did not wish to put our students’ health at risk, but at the same time, we did not wish to deprive them and their families of the sense of achievement and pride of passing out of India’s premier engineering Institute," said the Director.

The commencement speeches and keynote addresses will be followed by a synchronised pledge by students all over the country at the end of the ceremony. But that's not it. The students can visit their hostel, departments, and other campus meeting points to meet and interact with friends, faculty and club members and then roam around the campus as well if they wish too. How cool is that!

Where can you catch the event live:

Doordarshan Sahyadri

DD Free dish: 525

Dish TV: 1229

d2h: 769

Tata Sky: 1299

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/IITBombayOfficialChannel

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/iitbombay/