Monthly Evening Lecture Programs March 2016 On 29th March 2016, Colonel K S Chakravarthi (Retd), Management Consultant, delivered an excellent lecture on “Evolution of Mobile Technology 1G and beyond and its Impact on the Quality of Life” held at NIQR Conference Hall. Mr. C. Sundaravadivelu, Treasurer- NIQR Chennai Branch presided over the lecture and welcomed the members present and Mr. C. V. Gowri Sankar, Secretary – NIQR Chennai Branch introduced the speaker.Splitting the session into 3 parts, ‘Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow’, Col. K S Chakravarthi started with the communication scenario in the nineteenth century when mainly Postal and Telegraph departments helped the society with the first means of distant communication. He dwelled on manual telephone, the development of technology through wireless, advancement of frequencies, voice to SMS, digital technology, capacity enhancement, software Apps, etc, in a seamless way keeping the audience speechless. He enthused the audience with how a status symbol like telephone has become a necessity to mankind in a short span of time and the impact it has on the basic quality of common man’s life.In Today’s scenario, the wireless has a punch on quality of life of every individual – use of remote for TV, AC, mouse, etc. Use of IP has resulted in having all multimedia in mobile phone and use of any software anywhere with high speed, quality, capacity combined with low cost. He gave a good account of 5G wherein 8 multiple inputs like voice, SMS, video, camera, etc induce the communication world from divergent to convergent of Networks, Devices, Technology and Users. He described how India is fast catching up in the last ten years in the world of Communication. Chaks (as he is fond of being called), gave a picture of tomorrow where the entire spectrum of ‘Quality of Life of man’ is likely to be influenced by the advent of Omni-present, Omni-potent sensors. The day is not far off when in normal life, one is monitored continuously like in fiction movies. He concluded with the advancement of IOT(Internet Of Things) which is likely to play a major role tomorrow. The possibilities of mobiles in the field of information dissemination socially are astounding.He showed lot of videos to make the audience understand the future scenario better. The Q&A session, though lively has to be curtailed for want of time. He clarified that ‘long usage of mobiles is a health hazard’ is a myth.Mr. K. Sridharan Balaji, former Secretary – NIQR Chennai Branch summing up the proceedings appreciated the enormous amount of preparations done by Col. K S Chakravarthi at the age of 77, which kept the audience thrilled and wanted one more longer session. The passion of the Colonel on the subject was very much discernible as he collected feedback from the participants through emails.