The seed of interest towards Engineering is mainly sown in young minds when they realise their affinity towards science and technology. They are fascinated by the latest technological innovations that they have come across. They explore the three aforementioned subjects and eventually excel in one or more of them. However, the disconnect to the stream starts to seep in once they reach the third or fourth semester of their course. The curriculum that they study in college has barely any connection to the current technological advancements that drew them in in the first place. Slowly they start moving on from engineering when they also get a glimpse of the skimpy number of job opportunities in core Engineering.

Chaturvedi says that there are myths in our society about what constitutes science and what constitutes engineering. He believes it to be the responsibility of the people in STEM to raise awareness that engineering education is not divorced from, but built on the foundations of physics, chemistry and maths. The word “science” per see should not be conceived as simply physics, chemistry, maths and biology.

Usually, students grow disinterested towards engineering seeing the rising level of difficulty in the subjects they perceive as “science”. This disappointment often stems from the societal conditioning that engineering is something different from the “science” subjects they have studied.

Chaturvedi also perceives engineering students to be a byproduct of the engineering colleges: and like any product, they also have a shelf-life. We rarely see a product which retains its relevance in the market even after two to three years of its introduction in the market. This is exactly the challenge faced by the engineering curriculum.

Chaturvedi advises both internal and external efforts that can be made to retain the students’ interest in engineering. “The schools, societies and IITs can help prepare prospective engineering students with a better understanding of what they can expect from engineering education and how they can relate it to the technical world we see and experience”, he says. With the collective external addressing of this issue on the part of the IITs, the students and the curriculum both can be saved.

Internally, he says, the engineering curriculum should have a revision and necessary reform every two to three years to keep the curriculum from being redundant to the learner. Minor changes should keep being made on a continuous basis. Then, it might be possible to strike a balance between teaching the “Science of Engineering” and keeping the passion for engineering alive in students.

The post What Makes Students Lose Interest in Engineering? Former IIT Director explains appeared first on Higher Education Plus.

IIT Kharagpur Director, Professor Virendra Kumar remarked, “This centre would form the umbrella academic unit orchestrating and synergising with several research centres and facilities on transportation at IIT Kharagpur including the IGCRCoITS.” He said that the future project assures self-sustainability of IGCRCoITS in terms of resources and expansion along with inclusion of new participants from the academia and industrial domains, for both India and Germany.

“Advanced research, consultancy, advisory and training programmes with participation of various beneficiary partners will create new domains to implement intelligent transportation systems,” he added. The first phase of the future trans project started from 2018 involving workshops, research groups, sponsored as well as doctoral research in diversified area of academia along with numerous publications in reputed journals and conference papers in the area of intelligent transportation.

The post IIT Kharagpur signs a Letter of Intent with the Technical University of Munich appeared first on Higher Education Plus.

As per IIT-H, the programme is to train future medical and radiation physicists. It is approved by Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) approved and will provide world class training in concepts and techniques of applying physics in medical field.

Talking about the program’s relevance with NEP 2020, Prof B S Murty, Director, IITH, said, “IITH has well-established Departments of Biomedical Engineering & Physics providing UG, PG & PhD programs wherein students are solving various challenges of the healthcare sector. MSc (Medical Physics) program of IITH, in collaboration with BIACH&RI, is the 3rd PG program in the field of healthcare at IITH, which, in line with NEP, provides not only strong academic background to the students but also provides hands-on training in the form of year-long Clinical internship to the students to make them industry-ready”.

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Indian or foreign nationals having a relevant bachelor’s degree in the relevant field can apply for IIT JAM 2023 on the official website. Candidates who will complete their under graduation in 2023 can also apply for the test. The application will be available on the official website at jam.iitg.ac.in.

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Overall, 102 students from Unacademy have got top ranks in IIT JEE Mains 2021. Fourteen came in the All India Rank of 1 to 1000. Eighteen Unacademy students scored 99.9 percentile and above, while 70 students scored 99.5 percentile and above.

Amaiya Singhal (AIR 1) said he worked hard for three years to achieve this. “The most difficult aspect was to stay motivated through the duration of 11th and 12th grade. But I stayed positive, attempted mock tests regularly and solved all previous years’ question papers. The focused live and recorded classes at Unacademy turned out to be a boon since it helped me to revise and strategize better,” he said.

Unacademy student Bratin Mandal, who secured an All India Rank of 18, with a 100 percentile says studying on Unacademy changed his entire approach towards online learning. He said, “It was a great learning experience at Unacademy, because of its educators, comprehensive courses, and test series. Through Unacademy, my preparations continued even during the worst phases of the pandemic.”

After this momentous achievement, the students are busy studying for the upcoming IIT JEE Advanced Exam on Unacademy, which will take them one step closer to their dream of joining an IIT, or other prestigious Engineering colleges in India.

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This Ed-tech giant is turning India’s examination preparation landscape for public sector jobs into a tech-driven and automated system where students can learn at their own pace. The company has recently signed MoUs with India’s top educational institutions across India to impart professional skills training for securing high-paying jobs.

Ashutosh Kumar, Founder, and CEO, Testbook.com, said “We are excited to introduce Testbook’s unique 360-degree Skilled Campus Program that is specially designed for students for their professional skill development and training. Intending to make India more tech-driven, we are focusing on reaching out to as many educational institutes in the country. Through this, over 80k students have benefited till now.”

 For job preparation, the company is partnering with big giants and inviting industry experts from top companies like Google, Amazon, Adobe, Oracle, Microsoft, and many more to engage with students and share the latest industry insights to guide them with a clear roadmap for a job. Students will be getting exposure in Software development, Product Management, Data Science, Data Engineering, Data Analytics, Core Engineering, Consulting, Finance, Digital Marketing and HR.

Speaking on the partnership Pranjal Jain – UG Placement Head, IIT Madras, said “Our collaboration with Testbook has been immensely helpful and beneficial to the students. They ensure that the aptitude tests provided are up to the standards of the students at the institute and provide a plethora of study material for students to prepare from. Most importantly, they provide a detailed analysis of the performance on an individual basis as well as an institute level which allows students to target achieving new heights with each attempt. ”

Based on 8 pillars that are required for 360° job preparation for college students, the Skilled Campus Program would provide internships & job opportunities, skills training, mentorship from Industry Experts, aptitude preparation, technical subject preparation, hands-on projects, GD/PI Preparation, periodic tests and assessments. It covers sectors like tech, product, and marketing, business operations, content, design, video editing, HR and many more. It also provides live tests focusing on placement preparation with performance analytics, benchmarking and in-depth reports to universities about their students. Moreover, Testbook also provides “Testbook Pass” to students to prepare for public and as well as private-sector jobs for campus placements and recruitments exams across Engineering, Civil Services, Banking & Insurance, Railways, Defence, Teaching etc.

The post IITs join hands with Testbook for 360° Job Preparation Program appeared first on Higher Education Plus.

Through this MoU, the institutes will collaborate for R&D activities, share learning materials and experiences. Institutes will also help each-other in curriculum development for their respective courses and share teaching responsibilities in relevant domains. They will also organise workshops on topics of mutual interest for students and faculty members. The institutions will also collaborate in research and consultancy programs sponsored by national or international funding agencies. Institutes have also agreed to organize joint workshops/short-term courses/FDP/MDP programs for participants from industry and academic institutes. They would share their expertise and infrastructure to address the challenges of society.

The MoU assumes further significance owing to the recent initiative of IIT Roorkee to launch two new masters programmes in Master of Design and Master of Innovation Management with effect from the next academic year. Being a design education based institute NID Haryana, Kurukshetra could be an effective partner in implementation of the proposed programs, while NID Haryana, Kurukshetra will get benefitted from the vast resources in the field of Architecture, Planning and Engineering of the 173 years old institute of the country. It is worth mentioning here that the recently developed Design Innovation Center (DIC) at IIT Roorkee has played an important role in getting this MoU signed. The MoU was signed in the presence of Prof. Manoranjan Parida, Deputy Director, many key functionaries of IIT Roorkee, head of several departments of the institute, coordinator of the Design Innovation Center Prof. Apurbba Kumar Sharma and a few other faculty members.

Prof. Ajit K. Chaturvedi, Director-IITR, said, “We are delighted to enter into an MoU with NID Haryana, Kurukshetra. With the establishment of our Design Innovation Centre and it’s future roadmap of an enhanced footprint, the MoU would provide a platform for synergy between the two institutions.”

The MoU has provision for student exchange and their training through internships, projects, masters dissertation, and doctoral thesis. The institutes have also agreed to offer modular/elective courses to students in the area of mutual interest of both the institutes. They will offer joint projects enabling students to learn design culture and understand the use of technology for product design.

Prof. Vanita Ahuja, Director-NID Haryana, Kurukshetra said, “An association with IIT Roorkee, one of the premier institutes of the country is a step in the right direction. Such interface of Engineering and Design education is the requirement in present times.  We would be delighted to share our expertise with the faculty and students of IIT Roorkee and are hopeful that the agreement would yield positive results for both the institutes.”

The MoU will be effective from the 2020 – 2021 academic session and students from both the institutes would be able to opt for the various courses and facilities mentioned in the agreement.

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The data science course is offered online that is a self-paced course on the foundations of data science. The course covers the beginner’s level of data science including the mathematical and programming skills needed to understand the subject. The five-month course is available at an extremely affordable price i.e. Rs 1000 only for the students and faculty members of the institute.

For the data science course, familiarity with programming in some high-level language is required (C/C++, Python, Java). Basic 12th standard Mathematics is expected. For the other courses, the previous courses need to be completed. A certificate will be provided by the IIT Madras incubated OneFourth Labs upon successful completion.

Mode of Course: Online

The PadhAI One Series, which is on the foundations of data science, begins on 1 February 2020 and will be conducted for duration of 4 months. The machine learning and deep learning courses will be conducted post that in the months of July and December, respectively.

Students enrolled in schools or colleges and faculty members with a valid ID card showing their current affiliation can apply for the course, which would cost them Rs 1000 plus 18 per cent GST. Working professionals and others who are looking to up-skill can also apply for the course at Rs 5000 plus 18 per cent GST.

Steps to apply for the course:

• Visit PadhAI’s official website: padhai.onefourthlabs.in
• Click on “PadhAI One launched – see details”
• Now you are in ‘Foundations of Data Science’ course page
• Click on the button “Buy Rs 1180 for students”
• For Professionals, click on the other button “Buy Rs 5900.00”
• Sign up with your KYC information
• A new page with listed courses will appear
• Choose the desirable course
• Complete the payment formalities and get started

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Prof. R.V. Rajakumar, Director, IIT Bhubaneswar during the press interaction emphasized the need for cross-disciplinary Research and Development to fulfil the needs of Industry and talked about the importance of new age technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), IOT and 5G communication for serving the needs of the modern society and to realize the Digital India dream. He also briefed about the research activity taking place in the Institute in these key areas. He credited the Honorable
Prime Minister of India for popularizing and providing momentum to the concept of Digital India among the masses. He also acknowledged the philanthropic support from Smt. Susmita Bagchi, Shri. Subroto Bagchi, Odisha Skill Development Authority, MSME department of the Govt. of Odisha, STPI for joining hands together with IIT Bhubaneswar for creation of VARCoE.

VARCoE focuses on creating an ecosystem for carrying out R&D in AR-VR, immersive visualization and applications, giving impetus to skill development, manpower creation through the innovative education program and foster technology incubation and entrepreneurship. IIT Bhubaneswar is currently working upon digital technology. It conducts research on artificial intelligence, internet of things, 5G cellular to strengthen infrastructure development, delivery of services digitally and to make our citizens literate in digital technology.

Prof. Rabi Mahapatra of Texas A & M University, currently serving as visiting professor at IIT Bhubaneswar, Prof. R.K. Panda, Dean, Research and Development and Prof. P. K. Sahu, Head, School of Electrical Sciences, IIT Bhubaneswar were present during the session. The press interaction was followed by series of interesting Q & A session along with visits to the centres of excellence in Virtual and Augmented Reality for Immersive Visualization (VARCoE) along with visits to the other labs of AI, IOT, and 5g Cellular. Several live demonstrations of projects in all these key areas were showcased at IIT Bhubaneswar during the course of the visit.

The post Research Contributions of IIT Bhubaneswar for Digital India Day appeared first on Higher Education Plus.

Such assessments are valuable for the administrative authorities, implementers, chief executive, funding offices and advancement specialists, to have a typical comprehension on vulnerability, empowering them to survey which state in IHR is more vulnerable, what has made them helpless and how they may address these vulnerabilities.

The Framework and the outcomes were exhibited on March 14^th, 2019 during the National Workshop on ‘Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment for States and the Union Territories Using a Common Framework’ organised by IIT Guwahati and IIT Mandi with help from IISc Bengaluru, Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

The 12 states incorporate Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and the bumpy areas of West Bengal in the eastern part and Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir in the Western piece of IHR.

Featuring the effect of this project, Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, stated, “The adjustment to Climate Change is a synergistic effort between suitable utilization of innovation, a goal that produces policies, a change at ground level and drawing in the neighbourhood networks. These helplessness maps will assume an essential role in this effort.”

Talking about the significance of this venture, Prof. Timothy A. Gonsalves, Director, IIT Mandi, stated, “Being situated in the Himalayan Region, IIT Mandi is pleased to be a piece of this vulnerability evaluation exercise and a pioneer in innovation in this areas. The different research projects attempted by IIT Mandi address this vulnerability, peril and outrageous events in the Indian Himalayan Region.”

Understanding the high vulnerability of IHR, Government of India launched the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE). DST is coordinating the usage of NMSHE with help from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), under the Indian Himalayas Climate Adaptation Program (IHCAP).

Ms. Tamara Mona, Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of Switzerland in India stated, “Switzerland, similar to India, has a long involvement in confronting the potential chances and dangers. Swiss national policy for climate change adaptation has been complemented by nearby government procedures; based on detailed and locally anchored risks assessment, maps and preparedness, plans and actions. The IHCAP project of SDC, in partnership with DST, is supporting the implementation of NMSHE in India with a similar approach”.

The complete Report is accessible here: http://himalayageoportal.in/

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