शैक्षणिक सुधारणांची हि सुरवात

Maharashtra Times Pg 10; 23/03/2018

उच्चशिक्षाणातील वाढती असमान संधी

LOksatta Pg 09; 23/03/2018

Smart India Hackathon 2018 from March 30: Javadekar

NEW DELHI: The finale of the Smart India Hackathon 2018 (Software Edition) will be held on March 30 and 31 at 28 nodal centres across the country, announced HRD minister Prakash Javadekar on Thursday.

Smart India Hackathon is the World’s largest Nation-Building Digital Initiative of the HRD ministry and was conceptualized to harness the creativity and energy of bright young students for the development of our nation, the minister said.

Javadekar was hopeful that the solutions given by the students will be helpful in overcoming the challenges faced by various ministries and departments. This year’s initiative has software as well as hardware edition.

The minister said that SIH 2018 had received participation from 27 central ministries/ departments and 17 state governments who have sent more than 900 problem statements. After scrutinizing these problem statements, 408 problems (340 for software and 68 for hardware) were finally selected for the Hackathon and have been put out on MyGov platform. 

Javadekar added that SIH - 2018 has received over 17400 teams with participation of around one lakh students of Engineering, Management and MCA. These entries were scrutinized and 1296 entries have been selected for the finals.

In the finals, around 8000 students will attempt to give solutions for the listed 340 software problems. There are prizes to be won for different categories at each centre similar to last year.

Moreover, HRD ministry is also engaging with DST to ensure that selected teams from SIH 2018 could be supported by Technology Business Incubators (TBIs) as startups and DST has responded positively towards these efforts.

Some of the interesting projects of SIH developed by the students include a special pendrive to prevent data theft (for ISRO), Airport crowd management system (for Air India), a platform for North-East artefacts, a gaming solution for health benefits (for Ministry of AYUSH) among others. At least 27 projects will get implemented and adopted by different departments by the end of April or mid May 2018.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/smart-india-hackathon-2018-from-march-30-javadekar/articleshow/63419126.cms

AI can translate as well as a human: Microsoft system achieves same quality as a human

Times of India Pg 27; 16/03/2018

Blogging sites, vlogs are fostering student communities

Hindustan Times Pg 13; 14/03/2018

Fit for the Job: required skills of engineering graduates

Hindustan Times Pg 13, 14/03/2018

Technology can help curb mass cheating in education system

Hindustan Times Pg 14; 14/03/2018

Keep all your stuff within reach with these file-sharing services

Source Economic Times 13/03/2018 Pg No 13

Will technological disruption kill jobs?

No. On the contrary, India could well gain from it, provided a comprehensive policy framework is envisioned and implemented

No statement on global workforce, economic growth drivers, and world economy analysis is complete without mentioning India and technology in the same breath. Thanks to the efforts of successive governments, India has cemented its status as a global technological powerhouse. The Government’s determined push on expanding the penetration and use of technology through a slew of policy and executive actions hopes to ensure that technology becomes an integral part of the growth story.

Not so simple

It may be a broad and simplistic view of India’s tryst with technology, particularly on the issue of job creation and the lack of it. But one can say that India has had a ‘blow hot-blow cold’ relationship when it comes to confidence in technology underpinning the broader job creation drive. Jawaharlal Nehru, educated in Britain and inspired by Fabian Socialism, placed technology-driven modernism at the top of his priority list. He was instrumental in creating world class institutions such as the IITs and NITs; he believed that technology would be the bedrock of India’s transformation into a modern society and trained workforce.

Successive leaders could have better capitalised on and acknowledged the salience of technology in job creation. Leaders such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Rajiv Gandhi and Chandrababu Naidu did take the pain to pioneer policies, import computers and court global technological giants to create tech-driven jobs in India. Many believe the agglomeration of tech giants in Hyderabad and Bengaluru, and India’s solid foundations on digital literacy, is an outcome of such efforts.

On the other hand, a few instances pithily summarise the lack of confidence amongst some sections of our leadership, with some even claiming that a ban on computers would help create more jobs. Even though it would be too harsh to single out this instance, it exemplifies the deep-rooted distrust, and, to a large extent, the broader policy paralysis around promoting technology at a greater pace. Unfortunately, the overwhelming perception amongst some sections of stakeholders and policymakers is that greater induction of technology will only lead to job losses.

In more recent times, even the otherwise fragmented central trade unions are now working together to find solutions to mitigate job losses due to technological changes — a recent joint national strike by trade unions being a case in point. Job insecurity has fuelled the formation of unions in the IT/ITes sector which has so far remained untouched by unionisation. It is, therefore, fair to say that technology tends to unsettle our leaders when it comes to of job losses.

Unfounded fears

However, one need not dig deep into data to see how these fears may be unfounded. Rather than causing job losses, technology has created new businesses, processes, products and systems which couldn’t have been imagined before. They improved productivity, which led to a rise in wages and that drove the purchasing power upwards. This expanding purchasing power further created new business opportunities. According to one report, the internet created 2.4 new jobs for every one job lost.

It is not difficult to see how India is well positioned to benefit from job creation on the back of greater technological penetration. This premise is primarily driven by the following aspects:

1. A recent study by Mercer Consulting estimates that over 7 million jobs could be lost by 2020 due to various global disruptions — digitalisation, AI, automation, robotics, longevity, IoT, etc. At the same time, about 2 million jobs will be created in specific sectors. Of these, business and finance ops, management, and computer and mathematics-related job families will see the biggest growth. At the same time, some of the largest economies in the world — the US, the UK, Japan, South Korea — will face a significant gap between talent supply and demand with a net talent deficit position.

India stands out as the country with likely the largest talent pool surplus. When put together, these estimates position India uniquely to capitalise on the opportunity that will be created through technological and other disruptions given India’s surplus talent pool and strength in the identified job segments. India’s credentials as the world’s top exporter of ICT according to the Global Innovation Index, published by WIPO, Cornell and INSEAD jointly, can only further strengthen its ability to capitalise on this opportunity.

2. We must not forget that at the heart of job-creation is our ability to create new businesses and entrepreneurs. Technology is a core enabler of this aspect. Multiple studies by Nasscom, Jones Lang LaSalle’s City Momentum Index, Compass, etc confirm that India is a global growth leader and a leading centre when it comes to startup ecosystems. As new businesses emerge and grow, technology-powered entrepreneurship will be a key platform for millions of jobs in India across all segments of society. The impact is clearly evident in how Alibaba and Tencent’s JD.com have been able to offer a platform to millions of SMEs in China.

3. Technology has enabled connectivity and provided increased access to opportunities. This in turn has led to a robust growth in consumer spending. This is a virtuous cycle which will further create demand for more goods and services and thereby create more business opportunities across all tiers and segments of jobs. The rise of the middle-class in India is the result of such a phenomenon wherein the portion of population categorised as the poorest will have reduced to 22 per cent by 2025 (as opposed to 93 per cent in 1985) with the middle-class comprising over 40 per cent of the population.

Need a robust framework

How India can take advantage of technology to potentially create millions of jobs will depend on the Government’s ability to orchestrate an ecosystem that helps businesses to benefit from technology to drive innovation and growth. To achieve this, India must focus on a comprehensive policy framework that addresses three key pillars in an integrated manner:

1. A calibrated national talent management approach through a deeper labour market analysis as talent scarcity, surprisingly or not, is also on the rise.

2. Introducing strong elements of technology and innovation into the country’s education curriculum, backed by systematic institutional collaboration.

3. Focus on broadening and/or enhancing existing skill development/re-skilling programmes, including planning around job rotation and mobility support (say, along the lines of NSDC and India Skills Initiative being done in collaboration with the WEF).

Rana is a partner at Mercer Consulting; Dhar is a public policy specialist with the office of the vice-chairman, NITI Aayog

Source: https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/will-technological-disruption-kill-jobs/article23130150.ece

Digital boards likely to replace blackboard in next five years: Prakash Javadekar

The Union Minister for Human Resources Development Prakash Javadekar has said that the government is planning to replace the blackboard with the digital board in the next five years..

The Union Minister said, “Our aim is to replace blackboard with digital board in the next 5 years.”

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also while unveiling the Union Budget 2018-19 proposed to increase the digital intensity in education and move from black board to digital board.

In January this year, Javadekar revealed that the Government passed a resolution to ensure that in next five to seven years, every classroom in the country has a digital board.

“Just like operation black board ensured black boards in every classroom, today resolution was passed for operation digital board, so as to ensure there is a digital board in every class in coming 5-7 years,” Javadekar said.

“The digital boards would help generate student interest and would also make teachers more accountable,” Javadekar added.

Javadekar was addressing the first day of the 65th Central Advisory Board of Education meeting. The meeting was also attended by Union Ministers Maneka Gandhi, Thawar Chand Gehlot, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore.

Source: http://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2018/03/digital-boards-likely-to-replace-blackboard-in-next-five-years-prakash-javadekar/

Future of IT: IIT alumnus offers a students guide to the changing world of Engineering Education

Times of India Pg 12; 12/03/2018