The Department of Liberal Arts organised a conference on ‘Well-being and Mental Health: Technological Advancements, Challenges and the Future’ held recently at IIT Bhilai. The conference was aimed at understanding the role of emerging technological innovations in enhancing wellbeing and maintaining and treating mental health such as artificial intelligence. Further, it also emphasised understanding the challenges that could be encountered in integrating such technologies into wellbeing and mental health.

 

The Convenors of the conference, Dr Anindita Ghosh and Dr Rajkumar Eslavath, assistant professors of psychology, welcomed the guests. Prof Rajiv Prakash, Director, IIT Bhilai inspired a discussion on the topic through an interdisciplinary perspective and felicitated the Chief guest Prof Meena Hariharan. Keynote speaker Prof Meena Hariharan, founder director of Centre for Health psychology, HCU, threw light on hypertension and its technological management, Dr Nitin Anand, associate professor, NIMHANSspoke about digital addiction and Prof Kamlesh Singh, Prof IIT Delhi enlightened delegates about harnessing technology for well-being.

 

rof Vijyendra Pandey, HoD, CUK, Dr Chetan Anand, associate professor, AIIMS Raipur and Dr Shikha Soni, psychologist Mind House and Doc Vita chaired various sessions and provided participants with their insights and suggestions. The conference marked an initiation into bridging the gap between understanding how to appropriately using technological innovations for human well-being while being aware of its adverse effects. The conference was partly funded by IBITF, IIT Bhilai which also works on this topic and showcased some of their current works under progress on AI for mental health.