The government websites in our country are not best known for their user friendliness. Public university websites and educational department websites are no exceptions. Students across the country will vouch for this. But recently, the All India Council for Technical Education(AICTE) had an excellent revamp to its website, and the users now even enjoy advanced features like AI-powered chatbots. In fact, updating the AICTE website was one of the six problems of the Smart India Hackathon competition which saw participation from 23 teams from engineering colleges across the country.

The `Webmasters' from IIT (ISM) Dhanbad aced the competition with flying colors, adding 10 features to the website, including a virtual on screen keyboard, referral system for course selling and buying, text-to-speech converter, multilingual support with geolocation, Chatbot, searching features, reduction of loading time, visual for color blinds, security features, notification, and recommendation systems. It took them just 36 hours!

This latest achievement is a strong testament to the institute's vision. ISM, established in 1926 as the Indian School of Mines, has always been at the forefront of instilling its students with intellectual excellence imbued in social commitment. The institute nurtures initiatives and new ideas and endeavors to keep intellectual honesty at the heart of the leaders it produces. Indeed, IIT(ISM) Dhanbad has been a beacon of Indian education for several years, producing excellent graduates whose achievements bring laurels to the institute. This special issue is dedicated to them an elite group of leaders comprising eminent personalities from various industry verticals.