AICTE Chairman Prof. T.G. Sitharam Attends Industry Academia Integration Conclave 2023

On October 18, 2023, speaking as the chief guest of an academic conclave, the Chairman of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Prof. T.G. Sitharam, shared an incident with him asking ChatGPT to write a poem on AICTE in Hindi. Leaving him in total surprise by the AI’s advancement, the famous language-processing AI-driven chatbot wrote a poem in 10 seconds.
The chairman shared the anecdote when he was speaking on the theme of the sixth industry-academia conclave, ‘Opportunities and Challenges in Technical Education: Implications on India, Post G20-2023 Summit Success,’ organized by the Federation for World Academics at The Ashok Hotel, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi.
He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiative of Jan Bhagidari to encourage participation by the citizens of our country in the year of India’s G20 Presidency has democratised its importance and our strategic values in the whole world.
The chairman cleared that the AICTE wants to become a ‘facilitator, along with being the regulator’ of technical education in India and much more transforming guidelines will be released in the future by the council, aiming to make our technical graduates world-class.
Prof. Sitharam thanked the Federation for World Academics for organizing an academic conclave on the theme that centred on India’s G20 presidency and how its achievements are indubitably going to bridge the gap between the industry and academia.
Along with Prof. Sitharam, Prof. Bharat Bhasker, director of IIM Ahmedabad, Prof. Rajeev Ahuja, director of IIT Ropar, Deependra Kumar Jha, Chief Academic Officer of Larsen and Toubro and Prof. Shailendra Singh, Senior Professor at IIM Lucknow also shared their insights on the theme.
Director of India’s top management institute, IIM Ahmedabad, Prof. Bharat Bhasker shared some real incidents when human beings used the technology to do the grunt work and improved the efficiency. Enlightening on the importance of ‘duration of research’, the director of IIT Ropar, Prof. Rajeev Ahuja said that research takes time and the industry sector must understand that within three or six months, fruitful research could be a tough job. Prof. Ahuja also stressed industries must visit colleges at least twice each semester and students at the biggest exposure of those meetings.
“There is no point in delivering a lecture if it is not engaging,” said Deependra Jha. He further supported the initiative of Professor of Practice which encourages industry professionals to teach at academic institutions, but he stressed that it should be vice versa as academicians should also serve for some time at the industries, to inculcate the sectors’ need to the students.
At the conclave, colleges and institutions were awarded in different categories for their contribution to academics. Prof. Irfan A. Rizvi, Vice President of FWA, New Delhi, moderated the conclave. Shiv Shankar Sharma, Secretary General of FWA, thanked all the attendees for gracing the conclave.