IIT-Kharagpur to set up digital 'Hall of Fame'

Kharagpur, West Bengal, August 19: A sophisticated digitalised 'Hall of Fame' will be set up by the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (IIT-Kgp) at a cost of Rs.10 crore to document the evolution of the IIT system and record contributions of everyone associated with it.

In addition, a leadership development centre - the Vivekananda Centre for Human Excellence, Thought Leadership and Holistic Development - will also come up inside the IIT-Kgp campus at an investment of Rs.15 crore.

Both the ventures will take two to three years to complete. "We are going to set up a 'Hall of Fame' to document the IIT system. We will remember every one who contributed to this system. We will harness the best of the digital technology to document every person we can remember who built IIT," Parth Pratim Chakrabarti, director of IIT-Kgp said during the institute's 63rd Foundation Day.

Conceptualised by IIT alumnus Tapan P. Bagchi, the unique archive has received an initial seed funding of Rs.1 crore (from Bagchi and another former student Vijay Kumar). Kumar has granted Rs.1 crore for the leadership development hub. "The centre will boost all-round growth of the students. There will be stress on meditation and spiritual growth too," Chakrabarti said.

'Bring adequate, qualified teachers to staff new IITs'

Kharagpur, West Bengal, August 19: Indian-American educator Pradeep Khosla Monday expressed concern over the dearth of qualified teachers to teach at the proposed Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

Answering questions from students at the IIT here during the institute's 63rd Foundation Day, Khosla stressed the need for recruiting quality faculty in the new IITs. "Ideally the expansion of IITs is not a bad idea if you could staff all the IITs with the faculty of the right calibre.

But if you just expand IITs for the sake of expansion without faculty of the right calibre, then you are just harming the students," Khosla said when asked by a student on whether setting up more IITs is a good or bad idea.

An alumnus of the institute's 1980 batch, the internationally renowned electrical and computer engineer was awarded an honorary D.Sc. at the function. Khosla, chancellor of University of California - San Diego, lamented the lack of flow of investment for creating infrastructure.

"My concern right now in India is that number of qualified people to fill faculty positions is not adequate." "We aren't investing in the infrastructure for creating more Ph. Ds. So we will not have the right number of qualified people," he said. This will be "an injustice and not good experience for students", he pointed out.

In his lecture on implications of cyber security for the country, he highlighted that in future a combination of biometrics such as facial recognition, retinal scan etc. would be a key tool in security monitoring, including those dealing with smartphones. The scientist also said Indian students need to develop their problem solving skills.

IANS