Tiruvannamalai Collector K.S. Kandasamy on Tuesday urged people to apply technology for the betterment of society.

At the valedictory session of IEEE international conference on “Emerging trends in Information Technology and Engineering” organised by the School of Information Technology and Engineering at VIT, Vellore, he said one needs to take technology and apply it for the betterment of society, and not for the technology alone, according to a press release.

He pointed out that in the past, people used to wait for hours to get long distance calls through landline phones, and the advent of cell phones and smart phones had transformed communication and minimised distances between places.

Mr. Kandasamy gave away prizes to winners of hackathon conducted as part of the conference.

K. Pitchumani, vice-chancellor of Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, K. Sathiyanarayanan, Registrar of VIT and B.K. Tripathy, dean of School of Information Technology and Engineering were present, the press release from the institution said.