National Instruments celebrates Educators Day

Updated on: Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Chennai: The eighth annual Educators day 2009, the largest academic platform for science and engineering professors was hosted by National Instruments in collaboration with NICE (Nurturing Innovation and Creativity in Engineering) committee in Chennai. The event was a huge success with participation of over 1400 professors and eminent academicians from 800 engineering institutes across India. Educator’s Day 2009 is focused on improving the quality of engineering education in India through experiential learning and to help foster the spirit of entrepreneurship among engineering students.


The Educators Day witnessed some intense discussion forums one of which was, Entrepreneurship- “The inconvenient truth” – a session chaired by Dr M P Ravindra, Advisor - Education and Research for Infosys Technologies Limited and Executive Director (India) of IUCEE and shared by thought leaders in the industry.


The panel discussion gave rise to thoughts from mighty professors from IIT-Madras, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, SASTRA, PSG College of technology, etc who discussed on various trends and challenges in embedded technology and importance of laboratory experiments for experiential learning. Other colleges who participated at the event included Anna University, NITK-Surathkal, Vellore Institute of Technology and others.


According to Prof Gopikrishna Rao, Chairman, NICE Committee, “We look forward to seeing a revived culture of entrepreneurship which we intend to develop through experiential learning approach in all the colleges. Educators day is the best platform to reach these colleges on an equal mode”


Jayaram Pillai, Managing Director, IndRA (India, Russia and Arabia), said, “Educational systems for engineers in India must strive to develop engineers with cognitive abilities to reinvent the spirit of creativity and innovation. Educators can reform the current system by encouraging experiential learning, thereby producing industry ready talent. To meet the organisational objectives these students must be trained and exposed to a higher level of technological proficiency”. Pillai underlined his belief of Experiential learning as an important pre-requisite which can produce engineers with higher analytical & reasoning capabilities.
 

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