New Generation Technological Education at the IITs: Optimal Track, Rather Than Fast-Track?

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), India’s central government owned premier institutions of national importance for technological education have been the Indian icons of globally competitive technical education. The initiatives they take, and the reforms they usher in, have a ripple effect in the entire field of technical education in India. IITs’ latest proposal for fast track engineering (B Tech) degree based on accelerated credits (in three and half years instead of four years) has the potential to churn the technical education scenario in India if it is not appreciated and improved in a holistic perspective. This proposal has to be viewed in the perspective that not several years ago, engineering degree in India required five years of full time study. If this proposal of three and half years becomes real, India would probably the first major country, after the USA, to provide a bachelor’s degree in engineering in such a compressed time frame.   

IITs are known to be cradles of high pressure, high performance education. The entry into IITs is itself a resultant of highly competitive Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) system, for which school boys start preparing years ahead through high intensity coaching. Given this context, an emphasis on credits for a compressed time frame could be seen to be adding to the high pressure robotized study system in the IITs, making students vulnerable to the dangers of intense competitiveness. If other competitive institutions like National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and other key universities follow suit, it could be a larger phenomenon of ‘race to degree’. Another worry would be that other regional universities and colleges may try to follow suit, and given the reduced level of study and examination solidity in such universities and colleges there could be a dilution of study standards in such institutions. At the same time, there also seem to be certain higher order goals in the proposed change which are yet to catch the attention. This blog post discusses the latest proposal from the IITs in the totality, and options.

Flexibility

The IITs proposal, announced by Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, the Director of IIT Kharagpur at the 60^th convocation of the Institute on July 26, 2014, has an important concept of flexibility. The fast-track option is essentially for those students who can accrue the requisite credits. The proposal also allows a more languid pace, extending up to 8 years for the ‘slow learners’. The fast track option envisages that the ‘saved’ six months can be utilized for job or entrepreneurship. It also allows inter-IIT portability of credits to utilize the centers of excellence that exist in various IITs. With these features in tow, the fast track proposal would appear more holistic. This, does not, however take the focus away from the weighty nature of a true technological curriculum and whether adequate justice is being done to it under even a four year program. The pitfall in any credit based system is the equation of credit to learning and subjects to knowledge, all of which require certain minimum periods of time for attention, absorption and assimilation.

The undergraduate level engineering programs are both foundational and specialist in nature. Despite the proliferation of various engineering streams, each engineer irrespective of the specialization must be well versed in certain core engineering studies. These relate to mathematics, sciences, humanities, design and drawing principles, and a foundation of each of the core or basic engineering specializations like civil, mechanical, electrical, electronics and computers. And, each of these has to have a corresponding laboratory practice, which should expose the students to a wide range of machining, forming, casting, welding and bonding practices related to various kinds of materials. Given the heavy knowledge and practice load on one hand, and the extremes of extracurricular pulls and social media distractions on the other hand, the case seems to be more for extension, rather than compression, of degree granting period.

Flights away

One question to ask is to whose benefit the acceleration would be if the fast-track graduate were to choose a job or another degree instead of the well intended entrepreneurship. As we are aware, many of the IIT graduates end up taking up management diplomas in the equally reputed Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) or go abroad for higher education or research. In the IIT Kharagpur convocation, Bharat Ratna Professor C N R Rao exhorted the IITians to stay in the country and contribute to India’s scientific and technological capital, citing his own example of success. If the fast-track graduates see the credit based graduation as an opportunity to explore other options elsewhere, the basis of advancing gets called into question. A total credit score of 182 in 7 semesters, covering theory, laboratory, workshop and fieldwork seems to be an intensely packed study and learning schedule (a typical course take 190 credits over 10 semesters).  A dual degree program is also offered under this route, though details are not yet available.   

By the same token, allowing a highly relaxed period of 8 years for course completion may also be misplaced. Given that all entrants to the IITs are competent and competitive, allowing that level of extended flexibility would be a loss in the formation of intellectual capital in India. Considering that certain students do find the pressure a trifle too much, flexibility for completing the course up to 6 years could be more in order.  Also, extending inter-IIT portability to cover at least one year of residence could expose the students to not only other centers of excellence but even to other residential cultures as well. Given that the new program will be rolled out from the academic year 2016-17, and in a phased manner, there is an opportunity to reinforce the good points of the fast-track program (in fact, it should be called optimal track program!), overcome the weaknesses and develop a techno-entrepreneurial ecosystem that maximizes the benefits of the proposal. 

Specializations

The key to success of a flexible credit based system is the availability of a number of specializations and micro-specializations on one hand and well coordinated academic planning. Providing total flexibility to the student in course choice could lead to diffused learning while too much control could lead to the defeat of the system itself. It is important that the academic deans of the IITs develop a course planner which explains why a cluster of related specializations would make a holistic sense compared to a random choice of courses. The course credits must be hierarchically defined based on complexity and relational synergy of the courses. It may be a good idea for the IITs to develop an App exclusively for course and credit planning under the fast-track system. The App must also link specializations offered by the various IITs to define a total universe of specializations. There could be certain thorny issues related to different IITs providing differential values to similar specializations based on the excellence they think they possess in the domain. This will be one challenge of flexibility.

The other challenge will be providing the specializations themselves. For a mechanical engineering stream, the range of main and specialization courses can range from thermodynamics to robotics. Whether a robotics specialization could be common for  mechanical and electronics mainstreams, or whether it would need to be customized to each mainstream would be one call. Given the fast paced developments, what would be the life of a course (say, 3 or 5 years) would be another call. Whether courses that belong to a graduate level (for example, prosthetics) would be a good fit for an undergraduate level mechanical engineering course could be another call. Whether specializations should be only subject matter or whether even laboratory or workshop practice could qualify as specializations is another call. Ideally, specializations should have a range that plays on one’s aptitude for further academic specialization or industrial practice. The challenges are likely to be more in domains where product life cycles are getting shorter. One way would be to link up academic expertise, research directions, consulting practice and industrial inputs in development of state-of-the-art specializations.

Entrepreneurship in IITs   

Given that an important aspect of the fast-track proposal is to release one semester for entrepreneurial activity, availability of an entrepreneurial ecosystem within the IIT system, or otherwise, would be a prerequisite.  A few IITs, notably IIT Madras, IIT Bombay, IIT Kharagpur, and IIT (BHU) Varnasi have experimented with creating entrepreneurial ecosystems as adjuncts to their educational systems. IIT Madras has set up IIT Madras Incubation Cell. IIT Bombay has set up Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. IIT (BHU) has established Malaviya Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship. Each of them has incorporated specific initiatives funded by the IITs, Central Ministries or IIT alumni themselves. Even a newer IIT like IIT Hyderabad has set up E-Cell for entrepreneurs. Although some of these have been in operation since 1999, there is no evidence of any major entrepreneurial startups that emerged from these incubation initiatives. Even though IITM has provided physical infrastructure through IIT Madras Research Park adjacent to IITM campus, startups have been few to leverage the facilities.     

Undoubtedly, the strong technological foundations at IITs, and the personality strengths of the IITians make them look at entrepreneurship as a career option more confidently, the only inhibiting factor being the hugely attractive job opportunities they automatically command. That said, convergence of futuristic research with foundational technology, and combination of financial support with commercial insights would be necessary to create an ecosystem that would make entrepreneurship widespread across IITs. Special emphasis should be laid on socially relevant low cost, high technology products. Entrepreneurship, however, requires more than a feasible product idea. A recent research suggests that an entrepreneur with a product idea needs a core organization of likeminded passionate friends to make a success of entrepreneurship. Even some of the biggest globalized startups of today such as Apple, Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Salesforce.com as well as regional startups like Project A Ventures, Eyeota, Flipkart, RedBus validate this thesis.

Indigenous ecosystem

The other aspect is that successful entrepreneurship needs certain other skills in addition to wholly technical skills. This has prompted the Hyderabad based management school, the Indian School of Business (ISB) to launch, as a two-year programme at ISB, Technology Entreprenurship Programme to equip select engineering students with skills to become entrepreneurs. It is stated that Microsoft Ventures and Google are supporting the programme. The larger question still would be whether even a broader educational curriculum for entrepreneurship or cross-collaboration between IITs (and/or NITs) and IIMs (and/or ISB) would be completely sufficient. The philosophical question is also whether entrepreneurship can only from arise from premier institutes, or could emerge as a broader national phenomenon. Prima facie, creative technological ideas ought to emerge from any institute which has higher technological and research competencies. Idea incubation (example, IIT Madras Incubation Cell) and licensing of patentable ideas (yet to happen in a big way) from institutes of higher technology is one facet of creation of a broader national entrepreneurship ecosystem.

The real answer could lie in restoring and rejuvenating the traditional economic employment system of India which was rooted in skill and craft based self-employment system but has faced dilution due to the attraction of readymade and assured career options that could arise from formal educational qualifications. It is, therefore, gratifying that some of the IIT entrepreneurship schools are focusing on socially relevant product or service ideas (example, Center for Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation at IIT Madras). Real developments that can be commercialized would need to focus on market applications rather than technology roots. For example, could a variable speed micro-motor be developed that could make a potter’s work more productive, more consistent and of higher quality? Can a portable ultrasound linked with tablet computer be designed to take ultrasound diagnostics into the rural areas? Can there be a sanitizing solution for dry leaf plates (used extensively in certain southern states) to obviate the need for paper plates? Can solar panels, inverters and electricity power be integrated to reduce generated power consumptions? Can there be water purifying technology which does not waste any water? The optimal track for IITs could be in not fast-tracking credits per se, but in integrating latent market needs with creative technologies.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on July 29, 2014          

 

 

From Type to Touch: For the Text, What’s Next?

Human civilization has seen centuries of evolution and development as an increasingly knowledge society, solely on the basis of oral and written communication. The myriad languages of the human race have been the vehicles of division as well as integration of societies. While oral communication has always been through a complex interaction of the brain, tongue and the mouth, the written communication has seen transformational changes as the human race and technologies developed. In India, Vedas, slokas, epics and poems which were captured on the palm leaves in the ancient root language Sanskrit (as well as in the other Indian languages) are a compelling evidence of the human’s unceasing quest to develop, race to develop, communicate and archive knowledge for the present and the future.

While oral expression has been a natural endowment, written expression has been a manmade competitive advantage. Writing materials have played a very prominent role in the development of diverse cultures. They have helped not only in preserving the history and culture of mankind, but have also deeply influenced the scripts, languages as well as man's mode of thinking. To understand ancient writing materials, therefore, is to understand ancient cultures in a better light. Societies which preserved knowledge, like the Western world, progressed while societies which were indifferent to preservation, like India, lost several treasures of knowledge. India has seen writing forms evolve over  several centuries using virtually every form of materials, from palm leaves to copper plates and stone slabs to modern paper; but so much more of ancient wisdom, it is felt, has not been captured at all. And, of whatever that has been written down a lot has been lost in history too.

Shift and Change

 Ever since the advent of computer, the domains of writing, publishing and dissemination have seen nothing short of a revolutionary transformation. From the initial binary punching to later day language typing, computer has seen a step function jump in processing power. From being a data processing machine, computer has become the backbone of new age information technology. Development of various computer languages to converse with the computer has customized computers to multiple uses.  Software capabilities and hardware power evolved in tandem to be able to electronically capture, manage, store, transmit and retrieve data, information and knowledge in standalone and networked computers as well as global servers and grids. Whatever the historical lapses in writing and preservation of information in the ancient India, it is a just irony that India is now in the forefront of writing the code for all the computer languages. There are, however, two facets to the language and communication paradigm of the computers; the visible and the invisible.

The visible language is user-friendly while the invisible language is programmer-challenging. The greater the user friendliness that is targeted, the greater is the programming challenge. With the growth of the Internet and instant patching and updating the challenge of keeping the invisible language current and contemporary has been increasing.  The invisible language itself has two parts, the programming language and the machine language. While major enhancements have been happening on the programming language front, the machine language remains binary. The relative exclusivity of popular operating systems (4 for computers and 4 for smart phones) vis-à-vis the proliferation of devices (several hundreds) indicates the complexities and challenges of developing an operating system that is truly multi-functional and robust.  Underlying the complexity is the need to write millions and billions of coding lines to support such user functionalities.

Touch and Write

The first improvement to user friendliness came with the incorporation of drop-down boxes and tool bars to guide the user and let the user select from the available options. This development still had to be accompanied by typing of options. The breakthrough, however, came through Apple bringing touch-select as the next level of user experience. The touch experience is intimately tied with the scrolling capability. Despite the dominance of touch in smart phones, touch navigation could pose a challenge in full fledged computing devices given the significantly additional number of operations to be performed. While an Office suite would cater to the detailed navigation, the fact would remain that touch would still be an immediate experience rather than a type-along experience for the user. Microsoft has recently launched Windows 8 as the ’touch and navigate’ platform applicable across all the devices, from phones and tablets to laptops and desktops. Whether text management can now be integrated with touch management is the next frontier for Microsoft to explore and conquer.

For thousands of years, writing has been the hallmark of human civilization. Writing brings out certain faculties of hand and brain coordination, in terms of control and memory as opposed to typing which, though bringing out a different type of hand and brain coordination, admittedly mechanizes the writing faculty. After the initial failure of initial handwriting recognition that was applied on the original Microsoft tablet computer in the early 2000s, the importance of writing on the computers has taken a distant second position. The more recent revival of pen stylus based devices, more especially Samsung Galaxy Note devices, gives hope that handwriting would reemerge and remain as the most intelligent and intellectual form of providing inputs. This would require a new level of integration between software and hardware technologies with superior capabilities for highly variable handwriting between people. However, that certainly is the way to go as the pen stylus brings the added advantage of free hand sketching, drawing and annotations as well as track changes.

See and Speak

Recognition and cognitive technologies would continue to be developed to the extent that look and talk would be the new input channels. The focusing of eyes would soon determine which icon (in the Apple language) or tile (in the Windows language) is desired to be opened by the user. Eventually, even sub-instructions may be tracked and selected with eye contact. The first evidence of the feasibility is already seen in certain devices and software solutions, from recognition of start and stop commands based on eyesight to adjustments to ambient conditions. In devices of the future, there may not be a need to have a dedicated camera key; a mere blink after focusing could snap the photo. Future cameras may detect the natural power of eyes and accordingly adjust their own aperture and focusing settings.

Cognitive technologies have seen a boost with the voice commands in the navigation systems and the more recent Apple Siri and Galay S voice in the mobile devices. These, however, are limited by the preprogramming potential. Open ended speech based input technologies have not so far realized the potential such technologies could hold. Cognitive technologies have speech recognition as the primary platform.  The potential has not been realized mainly because of the phonetic and pronunciation variations across people. Self-learning programs are the answer. Future speech recognition software solutions would reprogram themselves based on an initial cycle whereby a person inputs his or her speaking patterns and profiles. Such technologies would also add an extra layer of security to the computer system by uniquely recognizing the speaking patterns.

Think and Imagine

Probably, the net giant leap would be when the devices start recognizing the thought processes. As the mapping of brain, deciphering of brain waves and decoding of fired up neurons gain traction, potentially  each thought may be identified with a unique fingerprint. The thought rather than the person or the device could be the unique factor that could be standard across any person-device combination. This would require the devices to have powerful electromagnetic sensors that can recognize unique thought waves that correspond to the commands a person desires to give to the device. As with any new endeavor, the thought recognition technologies may be introduced with simple commands and later extended to the whole gamut of human thoughts.

The ultimate frontier could be to imagine the human intents and desires from out of the myriad overt recognizable actions and thoughts. This development would be quite the opposite of the previous hypothesis of universally standardized thought wave technologies. The ability to imagine would be achieved when a device is uniquely synchronized and intertwined with the owner cum user of the device. The device would have an enormous storage ability and analytical power to capture each and every unique thought, command and action to develop a full portfolio of how the user would behave. As the experience and expertise of the device grows, so would its ability to simulate its user’s thinking and imagining for the user and outlining a whole range of options as if the owner himself or herself would be imagining.

Design beyond Device

If the foregoing were to come true, and the author of this blog post believes would come true sooner than later, the devices would no longer me hand operated apparatuses anymore. They would be vested with increasingly higher levels of human faculties. The advertisement by Samsung for its latest mobile phone, Galaxy SIII, claims that it is “designed for humans”. Based on the foregoing discussion, the advertisement for future devices could well read as “designed as humans”, with each device being as uniquely personalized and intelligent as each human being uniquely is .

Posted by Dr CB Rao on December 25, 2012                      

 

Management and Leadership: More Than a Semantic Difference!

It is very often asked: “what is the difference between management and leadership?” One established concept has been that managers are found up to certain midrange hierarchy levels and leaders are found at the levels of heading functions, locations, businesses and organizations. This question has become even more confounding with a liberal use of the term leadership in organizations. Many times such organizations use the terms manager and leader interchangeably. The concept of grassroots leadership which implies that leadership can be found even amongst the frontline employees or public at large adds an intellectual red herring in the debate. On the other hand, the law usually considers officers, managers and directors as legally and operationally relevant terms. Leader is not a legally or administratively practical term.

For all the extensive, often liberal use of leadership as a term, even corporate organizations do not accord a formal recognition to leadership as a title. Organizational nomenclature includes titles such as executive, manager, president and director (with all the prefixes such as junior, senior, general, vice and a few others as applicable) but never a title that has the term leader in it. Even the acknowledged leader of a corporation is called the chief executive officer, managing director or chairman but not the chief leader, so to speak! Does that mean that leadership is a qualitative and ubiquitous concept that cannot be formally assigned? Or, does it mean that leadership has such deep undertones and person-to-person variations that the concept cannot be adequately framed in a formal title? If so, why does so much rhetorical debate exist around the terms management and leadership and why does the term leadership get used (or misused so much)?

Semantics of differences

According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, management is the act of running and controlling a business or similar organization, and a manager is a person who is in charge of running a business or a similar organization, or a part of one. The dictionary also defines a leader as a person who leads a group of people, especially the head of a country or an organization, and leadership as the state or position of being a leader. The definitions are semantically similar in terms of the domain of operation, that is, a business, organization or a part of it. The fundamental difference is that a manager is expected to “run and control” while a leader is expected to “lead”. The former gives a profile of acting within a boundary while the latter provides a flavor of defining a boundary. In a simple but elegant manner, the behavior with reference to a boundary sets the tone for the qualitative difference between a manager and a leader.

Much has been said by management experts to delineate the differences. In his 1989 book “On Becoming a Leader,” Warren Bennis composed a list of the differences. Some of these are: the manager administers while the leader innovates; the manager maintains while the leader develops; the manager focuses on systems and structure while the leader focuses on people; the manager relies on control while the leader inspires trust; the manager has a short-range view while the leader has a long-range perspective; the manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line while the leader’s eye is on the horizon; the manager accepts the status quo while the leader challenges it; the manager is the classic good soldier while the leader is his or her own person; and the manager does things right while the leader does the right thing. Other viewpoints are that management is all about efficiency while leadership is all about effectiveness, and management is about planning, executing and controlling activities while leadership is about inspiring, motivating and leading people.

Beyond semantics

Leadership and management must go hand in hand. While they are not the same thing, they are necessarily linked, and complementary. Not all efficient managers can be effective leaders while a leader cannot be effective unless he is an efficient manager too. Clearly, leadership has a wider canvas than management. Every manager has the opportunity and challenge to demonstrate leadership while every leader has the responsibility not to disown his or her managerial legacy. While the concept of “born leader” reflects a hypothesis that leadership characteristics tend to be intrinsic to an individual, an overwhelming proportion of leaders would perforce have to take the managerial route to becoming a leader. This is true to the core with professional leaders. On the other hand, entrepreneurial leaders who forget their managerial basics create a shaky short term that fails to support the distant long term vision, however appropriate it is.

Leadership and management are not necessarily hierarchical even though the way businesses and organizations are run allows for only a few leaders while it requires scores of managers. This is also the reason why corporations and groups which design their strategies and structures to facilitate many leaders are visibly more expansive and successful than those which have unitary and constraining organizational strategies and structures. A leader’s role is primarily transformative in that he or she constantly makes change happen; discovering and actualizing new boundaries is a critical aspect of leadership. A manager’s role is primarily focuses on execution in that he or she constantly converts plans into reality; that said, planning and controlling are a critical aspect of management. An effective manager demonstrates a potential for leadership every time he or she encounters a challenge or an opportunity. An efficient leader demonstrates a flair for management every time he or she seeks to convert his vision into strategy, and then to execution.

Measure and listen

It is often stated that what is not measured cannot be managed. It is not surprising, therefore, that managerial performance is often linked to measurement. Whether it is physical or financial performance, metrics are the key to management. Meaningful metrics which are benchmarked with internal and external best practices help demystify performance. At the same time, metrics that are not perceptive and are not benchmarked provide an illusory feel of management, in terms of planning, execution and controlling. An ability to understand the lead and lag effects of a metric is an essential component of managerial competence. A diligence to recognize the story behind the behavior of a metric is, however, reflective of managerial maturity. An organization which has a managerial bench that appreciates and implements a forward looking metrics based paradigm is likely to be efficient and effective, relative to its peers in the industry.

If metrics are the bedrock of management, listening is the hallmark of leadership. A leader’s communication skills help the leader to present his vision to the people he or she leads, inspiring them to execution. A leader’s real communication skills are, however, rooted in the complementary arm of communication, namely listening. A true leader listens as much as he or she is listened to. There have been exceptional leaders who listened to their inner voice and developed industry leading products, be it Henry Ford in the case of automobiles or Steve Jobs in the case of consumer electronics. Most successful leaders stay tuned to developments in the marketplace, customer feedback, employee expressions and stakeholder expectations to work proactively on industry leading concepts. The successful leader, therefore, creates an organizational ecosystem by which not only the leader but also employees stay connected to the external environment and with internal customers for transformative performance.

Development options

Given the importance of efficient (and effective) management as well as effective (and efficient) leadership, the development of a robust managerial and leadership talent pool with the right attributes is a key talent task. Education and experience need to be synergized to achieve expertise that can lead to superior managerial efficiency and effectiveness. Connectivity and communication need to be institutionalized to achieve an ambience that can lead to superior leadership effectiveness and efficiency. Each organization would need to develop its own talent models that would meet the twin objectives. Leadership is a qualitative and ambient motivational drive of an organization while management is a tangible and visible dimension of performance of an organization. In virtuous organizations both leadership and management work as institutionalized concepts enabling the organizations to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on August 12, 2012

Foreign Educational Institutions in India: Right Priorities and Relevant Pathways

For a country which has its share of debates, a new item has been added for diligent debate in India. The move by the Government of India to allow foreign educational institutions to set up bases in India is considered an unnecessary cost-push move by some educational experts given that the Indian educational system has reached a state of maturity. On the other hand, the proponents feel that the move is a logical extension of globalization with Indian universities being allowed to set up shops in foreign shores and vice versa. It is also hoped that foreign universities bring in the required investments for world-class educational experience in India. Some experiments of liberalization in India have had unwelcome fallouts of mass entry; some caution, therefore, is probably well merited.

Foreign educational institutions in India

Over the last ten years there has been a significant proliferation of the so called foreign educational institutions in India without commensurate qualitative change in the educational scene. According to the Association of Indian Universities, the foreign education institutions in India have increased from 144 (in 2000) to 631 (in 2010). The maximum number were from the UK (158), followed by Canada (80) and the US (44). Of the 60 foreign education providers, who have programmes of collaboration with local institutions, only 25 local institutions were affiliated to Indian universities or approved by regulatory bodies. Only 32 of the 49 foreign institutions operating under twinning arrangements have had approval or affiliation. A review of the institutions or the institutional collaborative arrangements indicates that the arrangements are usually aimed at awarding a degree with a “foreign tag” rather than achieving any institutional transformation.

The Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations Bill) 2010 has been pending before the Indian Parliament for the past two years. There has been growing concern in recent years that fake foreign varsities were duping students from India. Now, over 600 foreign education institutions operate in the country. The UGC put its plan to allow foreign universities to set up campuses on hold after a large number of members felt that there was need for greater deliberations from different areas of study, including technical, medical, law and architecture. There are also questions raised on the need to allow foreign varsities to function as "deemed universities''. Overall, it is clear that the existing framework has not enabled the real Ivy League institutions enter India; nor has it stopped the pursuit of higher education abroad by India’s talented students.

Enter UGC

The Universities Grants Commission has oversight and approval authority on the Indian university system. In an attempt to rein in fly-by-night operators who could money making educational shops in India, the UGC has made its approval mandatory for all collaborations between foreign and Indian educational institutions. The new regulations approved by the UGC on June 2, 2012 give existing institutions six months to get approval. The UGC has also laid down dual criteria to ensure that quality academic institutions are allowed to run joint degree or twinning courses. Only those foreign institutions will be allowed to collaborate who figure in the top 500 of the Times Higher Education World University Ranking or the Shanghai Jiaotong Ranking. The Indian varsities should have received the highest accreditation grade from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) and the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) to be eligible for a tie-up with a foreign institution.

The degrees will be awarded by the Indian universities for their acceptability in India. Institutes failing to abide by the guidelines would be penalized. The UGC is empowered to stop grants in case of public institutions while it can recommend to the Centre withdrawal of recognition in case of deemed universities. As stated by the UGC, the regulations aim to set a quality bar to the entry of foreign educational institutions into India, as well as for collaboration between the foreign and Indian educational institutions. The regulations, however, do not, and probably were not intended to, provide a canvas for structural changes in the Indian educational system, even in the higher education band where such foreign educational institutions operate. A more fundamental appraisal is needed.

Indian education, more with less

The Indian educational system has certainly its world-class achievements. The numbers of Indian students who gain admission in the top rung US educational institutions annually and the numbers of the Indian scientists and engineers employed in the US constitute a clear testimony to the Indian talent and Indian universities. In addition, the strong base of science and mathematics from the school level in India contrasts with the diffidence to engage in those studies in the US. However, these achievements are more in keeping with India’s ability to “do more with less”, rather than with a natural potential to “do even more with more”. The gaps in the educational system can be seen at different levels from primary school education to higher university education.

The need for a massive transformation in the primary and secondary school educational systems together with strict enforcement of the right of every child for education is keenly felt in India. This is, however, a domain which is, and has to remain as, the core competence of India. Foreign institutions would have little incentive or capability to play a role in this area. The fact that the pre-school and school years are also the years of solid foundational grounding in the Indian culture and Indian ethos, there is a case for the Indian institutions to display their moorings. Given this situation, this blog post focuses only on the higher education component of foreign institutional entry. The higher educational system has serious shortfalls in terms of infrastructure, faculty and research direction.

Higher education, lower resources

The largest of the entities in the Indian educational system, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have an annual budget in the range of Rs 2500 million (USD 50 million). They have typical faculty strength of 500 and student strength of 6000. In contrast, the top rung US universities have budgets of USD 1 billion to 4 billion (20 to 80 times over). The faculty strength tends to be the order of 2000 to 4000 and student strength of the order of 20000 to 40000. It is not uncommon for the top US universities to receive USD 500 to 1000 million each in research grants or alumni gifts. It is also not uncommon for the US universities have research budgets of the order of USD 750 million. While clearly there are differences of scale and scope, these are particularly pronounced in funding channels and their scale as well as research budgets and their scope.

The Indian higher educational system has done particularly well to equip each of its students to higher education or higher research abroad. What the Indian system failed to do is to create a base of fundamental research and development in its institutions in India that could serve as the further developmental grounds for the Indian talent. Even today, the breakthrough research continues to get done in the university laboratories of US, Japan and Europe. The Nobel prizes continue to get won by professors of US and European laboratories (despite several Indian researchers working in those laboratories). The entry of foreign educational institutions should address this fundamental infrastructure, research and resource gap rather than aim at providing run of the mill degree award and executive development programs.

Building a new research ecosystem

Foreign educational institutions can make a significant contribution in building a new research ecosystem in the Indian educational institutions. The work in the foreign laboratories is continuously focused on the fundamentals of matter and biology, oftentimes exploring the linkages. For example, at a time India is looking at genetics, epigenetics has been taken up in a big way in US laboratories. Interdisciplinary research is an institutional approach to provide new solutions. Microrobotics for less invasive surgery, nano-structured meta-materials, development of new materials such as graphine, ultra-sensitive diagnostics, human protein sequencing, personality genetics, amino acid studies, solar energy development, and so on. While not all research makes it to commercialization and while some is hyperbole in advance, the fact remains that many new problem solving directions are emerging from the US academic research.

The dilemma or disconnect for the Indian educational system lies in having a valuable stock of academically trained scientists and technologists in India who necessarily have to find a research base in the advanced laboratories of the US, Japan or Europe. Clearly, the value proposition for the foreign educational institutions must lie in accessing Indian talent without barriers and for the purpose creating the requisite laboratory infrastructure, research processes and information exchanges in India. This would certainly be a more complex process than sourcing products or processes from India because of the sensitive nature of intellectual property generation and patenting issues. By acting innovatively and responsibly with enhanced capabilities of scientific and technical communication the Indian talent can actually accelerate the publication and intellectual property record of the foreign universities. On the whole, a new ecosystem needs to be the sine qua non for getting the foreign educational institutions in to India.

What the governments can do

The governments, state and central, should treat setting up of state-of-the-art laboratories under the Indian-foreign educational system on par with attracting global commercial manufacturing and research proposals. Liberal provisioning of land and supportive infrastructure such as roads, power and telecommunications would go a long way in creating world class educational and research infrastructure in India. The Government of India and the Indian universities can also address the intellectual property constraint or barrier through a vibrant intellectual property office (IPO) system in India. Proposals of collaboration between the Indian and foreign universities must specify clear domains of research and goals of development. Commercial viability could be attempted for the initiatives through sponsored research projects.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on June 3, 2012

Government-Academy-Industry-Networking (GAIN): A Paradigm for Indian National Innovation

The foundations of India as a knowledge society lie in our colleges and universities. The society would not be intellectually what it is but for the educational institutions which transform human beings into human resources. Similarly, the foundations of an economic society lie in the industries and businesses. The society would not be economically what it is today but for the industries and businesses that not only utilize the human intellectual capital developed but also generate new knowledge to achieve commercial results. Despite this intrinsic synergy, it is of concern that industry (which for the purpose of this post includes business and administration) and academics (which for the purpose of this post covers all educational institutions) tend to be quite detached from each other.

Amongst all fields of knowledge generation in academia and knowledge application in industry, science and technology emerge as the primary drivers of development, requiring the highest levels of teaching, research, industrial development, investment and commercialization. These two fields are also the fields that require constant experimentation and research to develop new bodies of knowledge that can be commercially utilized anew. Science and technology are thus not only essential for social and economic development but also constitute the twin areas in which both the industry and academia have an enormous stake. Science, technology, industry and academy thus constitute the four essentials of national development and global competitiveness. Needless to say, the greater the collaboration amongst the industry and academics the greater would be the benefit for the nation in terms of the amazing results of science and technology.

Common and uncommon

Whenever two entities have goals that apparently converge but have strategies that diverge, there could be certain basic differences affecting the combined system. In the modern world, academics are considered to be the engine of economic development, in addition to the established role of community development through education. Similarly, industry is expected to be a responsible citizen in addition to the role of efficient wealth maximizer. However, the routes taken by the industry and academics are traditionally, and even now, seem to be different. Academics see their deliverables in terms of people and qualifications while industry sees its deliverables in terms of products and services. The factor of people, and more fundamentally of knowledge and talent, which constitutes the output of the academic system and the input of the industrial system is not utilized the best way.

Similarly, the disparities are also more apparent than real. Industry believes that its core requirement is speed of execution and that the academic environment is not exactly speed or delivery oriented. On the contrary, it is perhaps the educational system that has a very rigorous and time bound study calendar which it implements with predetermined accuracy. Academics believe that industrialists are content with application and repeatability for most part and that they are less concerned about knowledge and creativity as a work ethic. On the contrary, it is perhaps more incumbent than ever for the industries to be creative to retain or achieve competitiveness.

Drug discovery as a case study

While the concept of academic and industry collaboration is applicable for all industries, the pharmaceutical industry has all the promise to be a major domain for such collaboration. The Big Pharmaceutical Corporations traditionally dedicated to innovative drug discovery have moved away from a “high cost, long lead, low productivity” model of conducting all research in-house to a “low cost, low lead, smart development” model of industrial outsourcing and academic collaboration. Academic institutions abroad play a major role in triggering new scientific and technological development through academic research and converting them into industrial activity and business wealth. Genentech is a great example of this process. A large number of drugs that have been discovered or are in the development pipeline owe their origins to academic research. Some examples such as Pemetrexed (Alimta), Darunavir (Prezista), Astrasentan (Xinlay) and Emtricitabine (Emtriva) come to mind.

According to a research study (“National Origins of New Drugs”, Nature Publishing Group 2005), an analysis on drugs approved by the FDA between 1997 and 2008 suggests that 58 per cent were discovered by Big Pharma, 18 products by biotechs and 24 percent by universities. Of the 24 per cent discovered by the universities, interestingly, 8 per cent went to Big Pharma and 16 per cent to Biotechnology. On certain other criteria such as share in discovering drugs for unmet medical needs and drugs for orphan needs, biotechs and universities had a higher share. Willingness and creativity to experiment, which is a true benchmark of accomplished academia could be a driver for this. Quite apart from discovery of drugs, academic and industrial sponsors can collaborate on drug structure prospecting studies, receptor identification, biomarker development, mechanism of action studies, molecular pharmacology, molecular biology, target development, new dosage forms and novel drug delivery technologies.

Creativity and serendipity

Creativity has no boundaries. It is interesting that many of the blockbuster drugs approved in Japan were discovered by non-pharmaceutical corporations. In fact, it is a uniquely Japanese phenomenon to have pharmaceutical operations within non-pharmaceutical companies in Japan. Evoxac (cervimiline hydrochloride, partly by Snow Brand), Starlix (nateglenide, Ajinomoto) and Spectracef (cefditorin pivoxil, Meiji Seika) are the three Japanese drugs discovered by food companies. Eloxatin (oxaliplatin) came from a precious metals company, Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo. Several agricultural and plant products have given rise to medicinal products and food supplements. The willingness to constantly search for new applications has helped scientists to be creative.

Serendipity is one of the many factors that contribute to drug discovery. It has played a role in the discovery of prototype psychotropic drugs that led to modern pharmacological treatment in psychiatry. It has also played a role in the discovery of several drugs that have had an impact on the development of cardiovascular drugs. Serendipity in drug discovery implies the finding of one thing while looking for something else. This was the case in six serendipitous discoveries (out of a basket of twelve drugs covered in a Vanderbilt University research; Dialogues Clinical Neurosciences, 2006 : 8 (3) : 335-44) namely, aniline purple, penicillin, lysergic acid diethylamide, meprobamate, chlorpromazine, and imipramine. In the case of three drugs, i.e., potassium bromide, chloral hydrate, and lithium, the discovery was serendipitous because an utterly false rationale led to correct empirical results; and in case of two others, i.e., iproniazid and sildenafil, because valuable indications were found for these drugs which were not initially those sought The discovery of one of the twelve drugs, chlordiazepoxide, was sheer luck.

The freedom of academics sparks the creativity of science and helps cross-functional and cross-domain discoveries. Breakthrough concepts of artificial intelligence and biological cloning have resulted from university professors and researchers. Most Nobel prizes in science and medicine are garnered by university academics. Great institutions like Karolinska University are not only in the forefront of not only education and research but also in the vanguard of an intellectual ecosystem for entrepreneurship and commercial development. Many of the Silicon Valley startups have university connections that enabled great new ideas of professors and researchers see commercialization as entrepreneurial ventures. There is no reason why the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), National Institutes of Technology (NIT) and other premier universities cannot create knowledge ecosystems in India.

Competency building

In parallel to the product-focused research, academic institutions and industrial organizations can collaborate to develop students with skills and competencies that are required for cutting edge science and technology and convert the skills into commercial capabilities. The world is placing significant hope and trust on India delivering the unique advantages of frugal engineering, novel technologies, high quality, rapid commercialization and cost-competitiveness. This requires a talent pool which has not only an excellent knowledge base but also an ability to apply such knowledge to industrial scale development and global networking. The relative shortage of such talent, despite the high number of graduates, postgraduates and researchers has resulted in a skew in the employment market. Companies and educational institutions must collaborate to develop the requisite talent pool. Two way sabbaticals of industry professionals and academic professors, mutual lecture sessions, live projects in industries, symposia, and consulting assignments by universities would be great ways to strengthen the talent pool.

Institutions of higher learning not only provide the private sector with skilled human resources, but also support the sector in many other ways, including research and development . Collaboration between the academia and industry plays a crucial role in fostering public and private sector competitiveness, through both indirect and direct knowledge transfer. The indirect knowledge transfer is achieved through such activities as industrial training, using members of the academia as consultants in the private sector, holding joint workshops and conferences, and journal publications. On the other hand direct knowledge transfer is achieved through collaborative research and/or purchases of patents. It should be noted that in both types of knowledge transfer, knowledge flow is in both directions, between academia and industry. Knowledge from the academia to the industry is used to improve products and services, while the knowledge from industry to the academia is used to define disciplines, develop curricula, design short courses, and improve pedagogy.

Government, the vertex of knowledge triangle

Globally, governments have played a significant role in fostering industry academic collaboration either by policy or financial incentives. The progress made by several developed economies is directly attributable to the knowledge and talent ecosystems that governments, universities and industries built together. The United States has been the pioneer in funding academic research and institutional development of knowledge with commercialization of intellectual property. Europe has been also a major harbinger of scientific and technological innovation for commercialization. A study of select Asian countries by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as reflected in its work “Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property and Effective University-Industry Partnerships: The Experience of China, India, Japan, Philippines, The Republic of Korea, Singapore and Thailand (2007)” has interesting insights.

In these countries, development and expansion of University-Industry (U-I) relationships during the study decade has been a result of goal-oriented and deliberate public policy efforts. The areas of focus have included: defining the legal status of universities and their professors, relaxing or removing regulations that prevented faculty members from working with companies, developing policies on intellectual property rights, establishing technology transfer offices, creating funding schemes, and ensuring adequate financial resources for research and development activities at universities. Asian countries, both developed and developing, demonstrated a consensus that universities and public laboratories should make greater contributions to countries’ overall economic growth and competitiveness. While universities, industries, and publicly-funded research institutions should be allowed to develop working relations with each other through their own initiative, governments also have a responsibility to establish laws and practices that would give proper incentives towards collaborative research activities. At the same time, WIPO cautions that we must be careful not to forget the importance of long-term scientific goals and educational responsibility. Universities should not cave in to the pressure to generate quick commercial outcomes.

In all of the Asian countries that participated in the WIPO project, some type of policy framework, underpinned by laws and government regulations, has been put in place over the last two decades. According to WIPO, ideally, the policy framework should serve three purposes: first, to state publicly the intention of the government with respect to the direction universities and industry should take; second, to lay down legal rules for the conduct of universities and industry, for example in relation to the management of IPRs; and third, to secure financial resources and incentives to facilitate collaboration. Not all countries have policy frameworks that serve all the three purposes. In certain countries, the legal status of universities needed to be redefined by new laws so that they could operate as independent and responsible entities. In others, there was no need for new legislation. In some countries, governments are taking pro-active measures to boost U-I collaboration, while in other countries they play more backseat roles, allowing universities and industries to determine their own courses of action. The legal frameworks are very different among the Asian countries that participated in this project. In addition to the legal framework, some countries draw up basic plans and goals for U-I collaboration with a view to setting forth future directions and accelerating the trend. Such basic plans are meant to be reviewed and if necessary, modified regularly to take into account the progress to date.

'GAIN' as a paradigm for India

In India, which has among the best university, industrial and legal systems of the world, Government has a major role to play in the academy-industry collaboration. For one, most high level scientific and technological institutions in India are sponsored, funded or regulated by the government. Secondly, government funding and tax policies have a major role to play in seeding the thoughts of collaboration and incentivizing. In the US as well, federal funding is a major trigger for academic research. In India, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) of the Government plays a major catalytic role through programs such as Industrial R&D Promotion Program, Technology Development and Demonstration Program, Technopreneur Promotion Program and Technology Development and Utilization Program. Of these, TDDP has been playing a significant role in strengthening the interface between industry R&D establishments and academic institutions through a variety of schemes and projects. Yet, the impact in terms of intellectual property creation and commercialization is not as deep as it ought to be.

Eventually, for a national impact, India would need a model of Government-Academy-Industry-Networking that is win-win for all the stake holders and the nation at large. One of the concerns industry has in sponsored research is the protection of intellectual property while the academia similarly have their concern for creative freedom. There is a need to combine creativity and novelty of positive university thinking with the rigor and discipline of real proof-of-concept that is required by the industry and regulators to achieve win-win commercialization. In this joint endeavor there is no question of who is better; chemistry is as important as biology, and extending it further, discovery of a preliminary proof-of-concept drug and its advancement to commercialization are equally important. Government on its part would like the educational institutions to generate some royalties out of the intellectual property generated which would help the institutions reinvest for better infrastructure.

Under the GAIN paradigm, the government would develop, through a joint expert committee, a standardized and transparent model of academy-industry collaborative agreements which will enable open collaboration and cross fertilization. In certain sunrise sectors, the government would need to take specific initiatives. For example, the Taiwanese government launched a Project called “Two Trillions & Two Stars” to promote industry development, in which the two stars referred to were the semiconductor and display industries. In order to convert the traditional production-strength business model into advanced technology, the need of qualified talents was identified by Taiwan as a crucial factor to keep up with the future plan. Therefore, Government, Industry, Academy and Research Institutes cooperated to provide technology training programs in Taiwan. One action initiated by Industrial Development Bureau, Minister of Economic Affairs (MOEA) was to establish “Semiconductor Institute” in 2003 to meet the challenge of professional and technical talents shortage issue. In addition, different kinds of organizations worked together to synergize programs for international investment and local industries.

India, with its several thousand colleges and universities as well as hundreds of public and private research laboratories could be catalyzed into a knowledge network by government policies. Transfer of academic research to entrepreneurial ventures on zero fee but commercialization linked royalties could be a great way to develop faith in the accomplishments of Indian research that are dormant. Larger firms and universities can play a more proactive role by setting up cutting edge centers of excellence in sunrise fields. Government can extend its effective role by providing the seed capital for such ventures which usually require mega capital. Active participation by the institutions and industries for such centers would be enabled if the sponsoring units are provided dedicated access to facilities and research. Centers for biotechnology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, genetics, and alternate energy are best supported by such collaborative endeavors.

Knowledge cities for GAIN

The Government of India has just announced a National Manufacturing Policy which envisages the creation of 12 mega National Investment and Manufacturing Zones (NIMZs) in the country to spur massive industrialization and make Manufacturing contribute to 25 percent of the GDP. For achieving global competitiveness and self-sufficiency through manufacturing, knowledge that can stimulate product and process competitiveness is even more necessary. GoI should consider the IITs, the IISc, the NITs and CSIR laboratories as well as the GoI recognized industrial R&D centers (totaling say 100 to start with) to take the lead for creating the knowledge cities around them. Networking would be as important as physical assets to translate GAIN into a successful operating paradigm. As with National Manufacturing Policy, GoI should soon come up with a National Knowledge Policy, with National Knowledge Cities and Government-Academy-Industry-Networking as its principal platforms, and national innovation and global competitiveness as the principal objectives.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on October 26, 2011.