How to enhance industry & institution partership?

IIT Kanpur should identify top 5 areas of core competencies where industry and institute partnership can bring global recognition for excellence. It should leverage alumni and other resources to accelerate the partnerships and investments.

Further we we have to leverage these partnerships to attract top tier Ph.D students, recruit faculty and conduct advanced research. Market & create an awareness about IIT,K/Industry partnership success within India and to the world. Develop a tracing process to gauze the success.

IIT Kanpur should put more emphasis on getting collaborations with as many companies as possible.More collaborations will ensure that students are exposed to diverse industry segments & this will enhance their learning process.

The Institution should see that the students get proper summer internships at their respective fields. The institution should also see that the companies that make their choice to hire the students should do it after the completion of the course.

Institution & the companies should see that students learn relevant stuff during their internship & there is no wastage of resources from either side.

The institution should ensure that both  the institution, its student & the respective industries benefit from each other. Each parties should see that trust & loyalty is maintained & strengthened during the course of time.

So, by doing so IIT K can build a strong repo in the market.

More than 85% of the engineers pass out from private institutions . IIT’s NIT’s etc,..form just 3% of the total strength . There fore this debate needs a larger focus , rather than just limiting it to be viewed as IIT’s need .

The very purpose institutions of Higher education  is not only to impart education to disseminate and diffuse the Knowledge in our Minds but also more importantly to “ Create Knowledge “ . Therefore, Research and Development are key to any such Institution and form integral part of its purpose and existence to supporting the nation’s sustained progress . A former Director of IIT Kharagpur once shared this with his fellow Teachers “ Teaching without research is like a stagnant pool of water . It is likely to stink after some time .

That’s precisely is what is happening in most of the newborn private engineering institutions that have mushroomed up in last one decade. Where the economic reasons on one hand and Lack of qualified Faculty on the other hand are the primary reasons  

India spends less than 1% of its GDP on R&D as compared to 3% by S.Korea and over 10% by developed nations. And still as a matter of fact there are on an average 100 patents per year filed by all the national institutions , but hardly any has been used by the industry.

Reasons ?

1. Absence of Engineering challenges in the early and Mid careers of Engineers passing out in contemporary Indian Academic and Industry sectors. I.e. the reasons almost all of the IIT grads move out to Industry or Institutions for higher studies outside india . Leass than 2% of pass out remain in the country . Who do you think is Left out for the Industry to Interact ?

2. Hence , Lack of appreciation by the industry of the importance and role of Engineering Fundamentals  and experimentation capabilities of Institutions ( Like IIT's) to solve their Complex Technical Problems . Also given the fact ,Indian Industry's own short sightedness , short term profiteering, lack of strategic thinking approach( barring large scale pvt. sector )

3. Lack of participation of Industry in Curriculum and pedagogic updating exercise.

 Both the above effects arise out of lack of mutual trust on abilities and capabilities of either sides .

4. Economic , technological and remunerative satisfaction realization differences in the Talented Engineers to continue to stay and work in the country  ?

And hence all leads to absence of Technical Platforms where Industry and Academic could meet frequently and discuss the engineering challenges faced at either end and collaborate to find a solution.

Remedial steps :

-Foster Free access to Knowledge environment , free of any administrative bureaucracy by giving greater autonomy to the research professors and students in decision making and funding of research projects

- Periodic short term visits matching the curriculum in each semester for faculty and students

- appointing  senior Indutry personnel as adjunct facutlies 

- short training courses on Industry and technology related topics  for students as electives or supplementals during the degree , master's or Doctoral programmes with proficiency testing and certification.

- Conducting frequent techincal workshops and seminars sponsored by Industry and publishing the proceedings in the Journals .

 -Taking up meaningful industry problem solving oriented research projects.

-Exchanging information on and Sharing each others expensive production and sophisticated test facilities on pay or barter basis .

- Taking Academic Scholars and Professors as a part of Industrial Project teams by the Industry.