Location: Assam Don Bosco University, Guwahati
Program: Advanced Internet Operations Research in India (AIORI) Regional Faculty Workshop
Associated Partner: Internet Society – India Kolkata Chapter
On August 1, 2025, Assam Don Bosco University in Guwahati held a historic event that gave the Advanced Internet Operations Research in India (AIORI) project a strong and important presence in the northeastern chapter of its National Workshop Series. The event effectively achieved its main goal of improving knowledge in Internet Engineering, encouraging open technical standards, and encouraging AI-driven innovation in an area that is becoming known for its growing pool of technical talent.
Institutions from all over Assam, such as Assam Down Town University, Assam Engineering College, Gauhati University, Scholar’s Institute of Technology and Management, Assam Skill University, Rajiv Gandhi University, Barak Valley Engineering College, Nagaland University, and Girijananda Chowdhury University, added to the warmth and energy of the day. They showed how committed the academic community in the region is. Their presence, whether directly or indirectly, brought people together and reminded everyone that the Northeast is still raising passionate young people who are ready to help India go digital.
This session was an important step in making sure that the Northeast is involved in and benefits from India’s quickly changing digital ecosystem.
The day started with a thoughtful and focused welcome session. The presenters all agreed that students who want to make a real difference in the fast-changing digital sector need to have a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of Internet infrastructure and the larger global ecosystem. This is not just an academic goal. This basic message quickly got everyone on the same page with the event’s main goal.
Engineering Capacity: From Protocols to Pathways
The most important session was the technical speech, which was given by the well-known Mr. Anand Raje, who is the Chair of the Internet Society – India Kolkata Chapter. His talk on AIORI and Internet Engineering was thought-provoking and full of technical information. It kept everyone in the room interested and helped students understand important basic ideas. He talked about complicated but important issues including how DNS systems work, how routing pathways work, and the bigger architectural architecture that keeps the internet running smoothly all around the world.
Mr. Raje’s strong message stressed how important it is for the country to develop its own technical skills and knowledge, rather than depending just on global infrastructure. His talk was a big turning point for a lot of students. It made them realise how many complicated engineering problems and rewarding chances there are out there that most people don’t see when they go online every day.
After this introductory session, the workshop turned into a lively and exciting discussion led by Mr. Anupam Agrawal (Chair IIFON) that was all about the “AIORI Ambassadors initiative.” He clearly explained the steps that students can take to get involved in national forums, hackathons, and innovation challenges. He stressed a lot how the hackathon environment is set up on purpose to help people improve their skills and solve real-world problems. This session was quite effective at getting students to take the initiative and be more involved in AIORI’s future technical and community activities.
Stakeholders, Policy, and National Resilience
The workshop then moved into an enlightening section focused on the collaborative role of various stakeholders. This explored how government agencies, specialized research bodies, and academic institutions must work in unison to systematically strengthen India’s overall digital resilience. This reinforced the crucial idea that students and faculty are not merely passive learners of technology but essential contributors to a coordinated national effort.
A particularly insightful session followed, highlighting the strategic efforts of MeitY & NIXI. This exposure helped attendees directly connect the technical elements of Internet Engineering with overarching national priorities and public initiatives, specifically those aimed at expanding internet accessibility and significantly improving routing efficiency across the country. This segment effectively contextualized technical studies within the framework of national development goals.
Anchors, Analytics, and Global Standards
The “AIORI Anchors session,” which was once again guided by Mr. Anand Raje, was one of the day’s clear highlights. This demonstration brought modern technology to life in the classroom by showing off the AIORI measuring framework’s specialised tools, platforms, analytics, and engineering models. People really liked the workshop since it was hands-on, which made sophisticated technical ideas interesting, easy to understand, and directly related to the participants’ schoolwork. As part of this project, 15 AIORI Anchors were put in place, providing the Northeast its own important place in India’s growing observability network and making the students feel like they were making a real difference.
The study continued with an interesting introduction to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which is the global organisation that sets internet standards. The workshop clearly showed how young professionals can start helping to define global standards and how open, collaborative engineering communities can be useful. This exposure was a key step that pushed students to think about more than just local problems and get involved with the future of the internet around the world.
Empowering the Northeast
The last session praised the hard work and excitement of everyone who took part. The Guwahati workshop is now a great example of AIORI’s mission: to spread deep technical knowledge and specialised Internet Engineering literacy to the talented, growing tech community in the Northeast.
We would like to give a special thank you to the Associate Partner, Internet Society – India Kolkata Chapter. Our active participation, always guided by the Internet Society’s goal of promoting the open development and constructive usage of the Internet, played a big role in the overall success of the Guwahati workshop. Working together made the event go more smoothly, made the learning experience much better, and had a big effect on the participants’ lives. The whole event strongly supported AIORI’s core premise that there is great technical talent all throughout India and that students from all over the country can and will become strong, capable contributors to the country’s digital future.
