Aimed at unleashing the potential of budding engineers to develop ideas that can make the lives of Indians better, the three-day annual event 'Cognizance 2017' of IIT Roorkee kick-started here on Friday.

The festival will feature more than 200 events focused on technology and societal themes like sex education and tackling problems of unemployment among the youth.

Based on the theme 'Eureka 2.0", the annual event aims to develop ideas that can accomplish ways to make the lives of Indian people better.

"Our students should become more aware of the challenges this society faces and the potential that engineering solutions can solve a lot of them," Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee, told IANS.

The event will hold a panel discussion on cashless economy in India which will be attended by top executives of Reliance Jio Money, Mobikwik India, Paytm among others.
 

In a recorded message, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said that use of technology in different sectors was inevitable to modernise and uplift the standards.

"We have to use technology to modernise the railways, mitigate the accidents and over all improve the railway experience," Prabhu said.

'Cognizance 2017' also features range of workshops including High Performance Analytics by IBM, Virtual Reality by Samsung, Internet of Things (IoT), cyber security among others.

On the entertainment side, the event features stand-up comedian Vipul Goyal and other artists under the banner of entertainment channel The Viral Fever (TVF).