Photos: clockwise from top left:  The lobby of the NIMHANS Convention Centre, venue of NI Days India 2014; NI COO Alex Davern and Vice President ( Emerging Markets) Victor Mieres addressing the media; The overall winners from the National AeroSpace Labs, Bangalore; Top student winners from Hindustan University Chennai for "Industrial Defense Unammned Ground System"; The runner up student winners  for  "Shadow Bionic Arm" from AWH Engineering College, Calicut; India Marketing Head, Satish Mohanram, with the demo system for the year's new solution,  Insight CM. ( All Photos: IndiaTechOnline)

Bangalore, September 18, 2014: Virtual instrumentation leader National Instruments,  brought its annual tech show -- NI Days -- to Bangalore once more,  showcasing  innovation by  engineering companies, government labs, small and medium enterprises -- and students -- all using their tools like LabView, MyDAC and CompactRIO. 
For the first time, the  annual India leg of the event, telescoped   academic and  professional-interest sessions into a crowded day that saw nearly a thousand participants attend standing room only sessions   and tutorials.
NI Chief Operating Officer  Alex Davern,  in his opening keynote,  suggested that the currently popular buzzword -- the Internet of Things --was particularly relevant in India:  “With the tremendous amount of aging machinery in power plants, steel mills and factories in India, the Industrial IoT is a critical element that will ensure the uptime and optimization of these systems."
Joel Shapiro, NI's  Marketing leader for emerging markets, anchored a 90 minute demo session where  new  products like NI InsightCM Enterprise --  a software solution that helps companies gain insight into the health of their capital equipment for machine maintenance and operations -- were unveiled.  The  new features of the 2014 edition of the flagship LabView were highlighted and 10 years of CompactRIO, the  world's first software designed controller were celebrated.
In a market were the biggest chunk of business -- 12% -- came from the academic sector, NI  honoured innovation by young students, using their tools -- and  welcomed 8 new  colleges into the NI family.
The annual student contest attracted a record 2000 entries, said India Marketing Manager Satish Mohanram.   Victor Mieres, NI's Singapore-based Vice President for Emerging Markets, briefed  delegates about recent achievements of Planet NI, an initiative he has  shepherded  since 2008 to empower engineers in emerging countries to achieve sustainable prosperity by providing increased access to NI technology.   Winning innovations in various categories  both industrial and academic were honoured. The application of the year was awarded to the team from National Aerospace Laboratories for their application titled Drishti Transmissometer.