IIT Kanpur successfully hosted the National Conference on Virtual Labs, highlighting the transformative impact of India’s digital learning tools in higher education. The conference, part of the Ministry of Education’s flagship Virtual Labs initiative, drew over 200 participants, including educators, developers, students, and service providers.

The two-day event featured a plenary talk, keynote addresses, lectures, and panel discussions. The sessions delved into emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, pedagogical advancements, user experiences, and the growing importance of remote and virtual experimentation in education.

The event was inaugurated by Prof. Manindra Agrawal, Director of IIT Kanpur. Also present on the occasion were Prof. Ranjan Bose, National Coordinator of the Virtual Labs Project and Director, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi, and Prof. Tarun Gupta, Dean of R&D, IIT Kanpur. Prof. Kantesh Balani, Principal Investigator and Coordinator of the Virtual Labs Conference at IIT Kanpur, also addressed the gathering, highlighting that the users of virtual lab should now become developers and contribute to creating new virtual lab experiments in their gap areas of supplementing lab for theory courses as well.

Prof. Manindra Agrawal, Director of IIT Kanpur, highlighted the objective of expanding access to virtual experiments for students across the country. He said, “The Virtual Labs Consortium aims to provide students access to a virtual environment through which they can conduct experiments. We also encourage the consortium to make these labs available in Hindi and other regional languages to create virtual lab environment as close to reality as possible. My best wishes to the Virtual Lab Consortium in their future endeavors.”

The plenary and keynote speakers included Prof. Ranjan Bose, IIIT Delhi; Prof. Venkatesh Choppella, IIT Hyderabad; Prof. K.V. Gangadharan, NITK; Prof. Kantesh Balani, IIT Kanpur; Prof. R.S. Anand, IIT Roorkee; Prof. Rahul Swarup, Dayalbagh Educational Institute; Prof. Sudhir Agashe, CoEP TU Pune; Prof. Shyam Diwakar, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham; and Prof. J. Ramkumar, IIT Kanpur.

Prof. Ranjan Bose from IIIT Delhi introduced the Virtual Labs project, implemented as part of the National Mission on Education through ICT of Ministry of Education, with over 175 Virtual Labs consisting of approximately 1700+ web-enabled experiments designed for remote-operation. Prof. Tarun Gupta highlighted that IIT Kanpur has on boarded more than 120 colleges as nodal centres of Virtual Labs.

“It was great to share and experience human stories behind the virtual labs”, said Prof. Venkatesh Choppella from IIIT Hyderabad who spoke on how the virtual labs transformed several aspects and helped in creating new infrastructure for engineering virtual labs.

“This IIT Kanpur event has allowed us to be part of the developers from many institutions in this part of India and to see how to engage users and make them developers of such online tools’, said Prof. Shyam Diwakar from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham who spoke at the conference.

“I am happy to have seen presentation and talks that reflected real time experience and feedback from the users”, added Prof. Gangadharan KV, National Institute of Technology Karnataka who addressed a keynote at the conference.  

In addition to keynote addresses and panel discussions, the conference hosted project presentations by 20 student groups, six regional centres, and 30 nodal centre coordinators. Discussions covered a wide range of themes from accessibility and outreach to overcoming infrastructure challenges and building virtual lab clubs.

As advanced technologies like AI/ML, AR/VR, gamification, and large language models redefine digital learning, participants explored innovations that can further personalize and democratize virtual education. The conference concluded with certificate distribution and participant feedback that stressed the need for multilingual labs, personalized learning management systems, and integrated grading tools.

The conference concluded with a shared commitment to transforming users into developers, accelerating India's journey towards inclusive, tech-driven education.