The five-day workshop “Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence: Principles & Practice (DLAI 2026)” was conducted from 9-13 March 2026 at Dhirubhai Ambani University (DAU) Gandhinagar in collaboration with Indian Statistical Institute Kolkata. The workshop was co-organized by Gujarat Biotechnology University, co-sponsored by Gujarat Council on Science and Technology (GUJCOST), Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Green AI with technical co-sponsorship from MathWorks. In view of the fact that Artificial Intelligence is no longer a futuristic ambition, it is transforming industries, research ecosystems, governance, and everyday life, the workshop aimed to provide intensive training and practical exposure to modern Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deep learning techniques for participants from academia, research, and industry. What makes this transformation even more significant is that AI is no longer confined to a single discipline. It has evolved into a unifying force across domains such as agriculture, business and management, pharmacology, computer science, electronics, information technology, and information & communication technology. This diverse representation strongly signifies that AI today is interdisciplinary, integrative, and essential to modern problem-solving across sectors. In line with this widespread adoption, the workshop attracted enthusiastic participation from over 75 attendees in offline and online modes, enabling participants from multiple institutions to benefit from the program.

The Technical sessions were delivered by distinguished researchers and practitioners from academia and industry, who shared insights into cutting-edge developments in AI and Machine Learning. The workshop also consisted of interactive hands-on sessions, allowing participants to gain practical experience with modern AI tools and frameworks and helped them develop a clear understanding of how AI techniques can be applied to solve practical problems across domains. The invited speakers from ISI Kolkata included Dr. Debapriyo Majumdar, Prof. Utpal Garain, Prof Umapada Pal, Prof. Ujjwal Bhattacharya, Prof. Sarbani Palit and Prof. Mandar Mitra. They covered a broad range of topics including machine learning fundamentals, reinforcement learning, large language models, retrieval-augmented generation, computer vision and model explainability. Dr. Rabi Narayan Sahoo, Principal Scientist ICAR-IARI delivered an engaging talk on leveraging AI and sensing for smart farming, Prof. Shanamuganathan Raman from IIT Gandhinagar shared his insights on Self-Supervised Photometric Inverse Rendering and Prof. Manjunath Joshi from DAU Gandhinagar apprised the participants about Generative AI techniques for computer vision and emphasized on the multimodal nature of the input in future applications. In addition, the workshop highlighted several real-world AI applications, including handwriting recognition for automated answer-script evaluation, glacial lake disaster prediction, agricultural analytics, applications in healthcare and air-pollution estimation

Workshop coordinators Prof. Srimanta Mandal and Prof. Shruti Bhilare thanked the speakers, the participants, the sponsors, Director General, DAU, Prof. Tathagata Bandyopadhyay, Director, School of Technology, DAU, Prof. G. Venkatesh, organizing committee and student volunteers for making the workshop a success. Prof. Mandal also emphasized on the prevalence of AI across multiple disciplines and application domains. Overall, DLAI 2026 successfully achieved its objective of strengthening participants’ understanding of modern AI methodologies and their practical applications. The interactive format encouraged knowledge exchange and collaboration among participants and experts. The program received positive feedback from participants, who appreciated the balanced combination of theoretical foundations and practical hands-on learning, making the workshop a valuable platform for advancing knowledge and skills in artificial intelligence and deep learning. The workshop concluded with the distribution of participation certificates to attendees, recognizing their successful completion of the training program. The workshop also served as a platform for knowledge exchange and collaboration, allowing participants to interact with experts and peers working in the field of artificial intelligence.