The fourth episode of India First Leadership Talk Series was conducted by MHRD’s Innovation Cell. The speaker for the webinar was prof. Anil Sahasrabude, Chairman, AICTE. The webinar was organised in Dr. MGR Educational and Research Institute in 4 different venues. The speaker spoke about the infrastructure, curriculum, teaching, training and innovation and start-up. He spoke about the expectation of an industry from an engineer graduate. He clearly mentions that students participating in an event that could bring up some innovative ideas to solve a real life problem stand out from the 8 lakhs to 10 lakhs of engineer graduates passing every year. According to him, the industries expect the graduate to know about their core work from day 1 whereas the student might not have been taught about the particular industrial field. He mentions that AICTE tends to teach the students the basic concepts at a deeper depth and motivate the students to update them with the new emerging technologies.

The AICTE sensitizes with the students and expects them to work on the problems faced by the society. The innovations should talk for the people and not just made for the sake of submission. He also talks about the inter-disciplinary knowledge that one should possess. This helps the students to have a wide area of knowledge and to know the technological feasibility. He says that students should be taught about the skill sets in the college itself. The other required skillsets including time management, communication, leadership, etc. also have a greater impact on employability.

He also talks about the emerging areas of technology which includes Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Analytics, and Cloud Computing etc. He recommends that these areas should be taught in the classrooms and keep them engaged. He feels that before educating the students, the faculties are supposed to be trained by encouraging them for attending FDPs and FTPs. He talks about the various schemes like Unnat Bharat Abhyan where one stays in a nearby village for few days and empathises with the population over there, see and analyse what problems they are facing. The govt. encourages by giving them fund to come with an innovative solution.

He also asks the institutes to concentrate on the students’ understanding towards the subject rather than just getting the answers and diagrams for a set of questions asked on question papers. He mentioned about the 8 modules that a faculty has to undergo to become a regular teaching faculty. It is mandatory for a teaching faculty to undergo faculty development programs to understand the psychology and understanding of a student towards the subjects and also the teachers should understand on what basis a question paper is supposed to be set up. He says that the present permanent faculties, the AICTE mandates them to undergo this modules for further promotion. AICTE is coming up with 2 - 3 weeks of FDPs where they will be given assignments and projects.

He further talks about the various funding bodies including NITI Ayog that gives funding upto 10 crores and DST that gives funding upto 13 crores. Throughout India there are more than 100 incubators that support the start-up environment and help in funding through the govt. funding bodies. Lastly he talks about the Atal Innovation Mission started by the government that encourages the school students to innovate using the technology.