Social criticism as a trigger for innovation The democratic society can measure its success in decentralizing and opening up the decision making processes by the extent to which it invites and welcomes open social criticism. Unfortunately, the team of Anna Hazare or government or other institutions, everybody seems to believe, that entire truth is on their…
Promoting innovations, social inclusion and industrial relevance in technical education A review of over 100,000 projects done by 350,000 students from 500 institutions at techpedia.in, an imitative of SRISTI (Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions) shows tremendous talent that our young technology students have in the country. By not tracking this talent and…
\’Getting More from Less for Many(MLM): Gandhian engineering in action Last week, hundreds of students and faculty from diploma engineering students from Parul Polytechnic Institute, LCIT Bhandu, Hashmukh Goswami college of Engineering, Govt polytechnic Surat etc., part of GTU were provided a national platform to showcase their talent through SRITI\’s techpedia.in. DG CSIR, Dr Samir…
many state governments are trying to imporove the educational processes, pedagogy and the curiculum. In gujarat hoardes of public officials and minsiters visit different schools and evaluate the educational performance, which is good. But why are not we harnessing the services of those teachers who have been known for their innovations, their creativity and their…
Cultivating curiosity, creativity and collaboration: supporting young tech students I met during the last few days, hundreds of creative people in India and outside. Young and old, highly trained and not so educated, students and professionals, bubbling with energy and wanting to make a difference. What was the common refrain: a) how can they get technical…
Educating children for new India The achievements of Indian youth in various fields are impressive and can vindicate perhaps the system of education. However, these achievers are so few in number that to use their example for justifying large scale inertia in educational reforms will not be appropriate. Few days back, there was pleasant news that Mahima…
Seven Lessons we can learn from creative children When Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, our former President of India honours the creative children from around the country on Nov 11, 2011 at Ignite function at IIMA organized by NIF and Honey Bee Network, he would underline the need once again for rethinking the pedagogy…
Emerging auto innovations at grassroots: an inspiring story of Nasirbhai With the news of Maruti setting up another plant in Gujarat, it is beyond doubt that Gujarat is emerging as a leading auto hub of not just India but may be, south and southeast Asia and eventually world. But there…
Should we convert natural disasters into manmade ones? Recent earthquake in Gujarat has revised the unfortunate memories of 2001. Have we learned the right lessons and can GSDMA and National authority do something more about it? What should we, the members of civil society do, to be better prepared? I will reiterate several ideas which…
The Idea and Innovation contest- IGNITE 2011’s school student award winners October 15, 2011 Ahmedabad National Innovation Foundation – India (NIF), Ahmedabad announces the names of the award winners of the IGNITE 2011 – school students’ national ideas and innovations competition. Overall 4104 submissions of students from twenty five states & union territories of the…