In 2009, a picturesque 500-acre campus in a remote Himalayan river valley was selected for an IIT. With a population of barely 200, beset by landslides and bitterly cold winters, the village of Kamand is 6-7 hours from the nearest major city, Chandigarh. A foolish pipe-dream that a member of the IIT system could rise here?
Fast forward 10 years to 2020: IIT Mandi was the first of the 8 new IITs to start occupying its permanent campus in mid-2012; is a leader among IITs in a number of measures; has achieved many milestones in its long journey towards becoming a renowned IIT.
In this session, we describe the IIT Mandi strategy based on several USPs. This example motivates strategies for other academic institutes in India.
Click for my slides [pdf, 4MB]
Indian engineering education today is characterised by large numbers, peaks of excellence and a large base of mediocrity. We examine the reasons for this and the role of academic makerspaces. We propose the LEAP product-driven learning (PDL) pedagogy to overcome the deficiencies. Over the past 4 years, LEAP has benefited over 5,500 students and 400+ faculty in 20 colleges. LEAP is poised to scale to lakhs of students in the next few years.
Click for my slides [pdf, 1.7MB]
Today’s graduates are entering a world of increasingly rapid change, change in which technology plays a large role. Much of what you have learnt in your 4 years in college will not be of use during most of your 30-40 years career. How to cope? (1) Lifelong learning (2) Become an agent of change. Take up challenging problems of India and design innovative solutions to bring prosperity to all Indians. We consider reduction of traffic fatalities as an example.
Click for my Graduation Address [pdf, 88KB]
Up to the 20th Century, engineering as a career was predictable. An aspiring engineer studied for 4-5 years to become an expert in a chosen branch. You got a job that used your college learning, and did well for several decades. On the job, you picked up skills specific to your company, perhaps went back to college for a master’s.
The 21st Century has upset these certainties. With the rapid pace of change, much of what an engineer studies in college is likely to be obsolete even before s/he graduates. Robots and AI/ML are taking over whole classes of jobs that engineers used to do. Technologies have a life time of a few years.
In this context, we address a number of questions that a student in a technological institute would have. What is engineering? How do I become a good engineer? AI/ML is my passion, why should I study Chemistry? With robots and AI/ML taking over many engineering jobs, what is my future as an engineer? Which companies will hire me to do real engineering?
Slides of my talk[pdf, 3.2 MB]. See also my MBF blog: How do I become an Innovative Engineer?