Bridging the gap between industry and academia

Updated on: Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Challenging the challenges is the true sign of a winner. And a handful of students have set out to do this. Ajay Kumar Nasani, Rajasekhar Vajrala and Sri Charan Lakkaraju, engineering students of Srinidhi Institute of Science and Technology, HITAM and TKR respectively have founded Society for Triggering Engineers Development (STED) which aims at enhancing employability apart from bridging the industry and academia.

“The organisation will cater to needs of the student community ranging from personality development, stress management and academic assistance to placements,” Mr. Kumar said. The modus operandi of STED, Mr. Kumar explained is to establish student chapters in various engineering colleges affiliated to JNTU across the State. The student chapters will then actively organise sessions on a regular basis in their colleges which will work towards creating a local platform to address the problems of students.

Leadership

“The student chapters would be headed by elected student representatives which in turns encourages leadership,” Mr. Kumar added. STED hopes to be different by carving a sustained programme of imparting soft-skills, practical skills etc to students. “We will have sessions every week in colleges where professionals from the industry would come and speak to the students. Apart from this we also plan to have regular technical fests, mock exams etc,” Mr. Vajrala said adding that well-known institutes such as IMS, TIME, Career Launcher etc have already come forth offering help.

So far over 12 colleges have already expressed consent to start STED chapters. Another objective of the organisation is to impart soft skills and equip engineering students from rural areas to better express themselves and be on par with their urban counterparts. “Many students are not able to speak English even when they are in second year. There are brilliant students who are unable to express themselves because of this and we hope to address this issue too,” he added.

Engineering students can register with STED at a nominal membership fee of Rs.100. “Registered members will be given a log-in id and password for our website ‘www.sted.in' where they can post their queries. These queries will be promptly replied to within a day by professionals,” Mr. Kumar said.

Interestingly, the organisation has gained the approval of Kishen Reddy, Head, JNTU Academic Audit Cell. STED will be officially launched on March 27. For details contact Mr. Kumar at 9985204972 or Mr. Rajashekar at 9030485859.

Bridging the gap between industry and academia

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