Comments on: Innovation in Indian universities?

By: sathyan

sathyan — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:21:37 +0000

I would say some of the premier colleges are nurturing innovation through their incubation centers. my friend who started hexolabs.com says their support was really helpful to start the business. it is worth a look at http://www.iitk.ac.in/siic

By: rambhai

rambhai — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 06:51:34 +0000

well donot forget mate the software giants like microsoft and apple~~were formed by dropouts of the university~~yet i truly believe the environment has the most influence on your character

By: Swaroop

Swaroop — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 11:29:02 +0000

@Prashanth: I don’t think there is a dearth of students who want to pursue Ph.D. The fact is that Indian Ph.D wannabes go to foreign universities and not to IITs, just check the rosters of any foreign university to verify this or feel free to dispute me on it.

By: Prashanth

Prashanth — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 05:32:55 +0000

@Swaroop, Just IISc and IITM? What about the other IITs and IIITs? The IITs have a tough time getting good quality PhD candidates even now, with the limited number of IITs. The first priority should be to encourage students to pursue higher education!

By: Swaroop

Swaroop — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:00:03 +0000

@Kalpesh: Yes, the mindset has to change. Although I’m thinking in a more wider angle - the mindset about going “higher, faster, stronger” rather than the current “pull each other down” mentality.

@Prashanth: The problem starts with lack of good institutions for research. AFAIK, there are only two good institutions in India for this (IISc and IITM) and only the best scorers will ever get into them.

By: Prashanth

Prashanth — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 08:14:15 +0000

Promoting more industry research could help initially in building the interest in research in India. Currently, research is looked at as a not so profitable profession. However, with growing industry participation it would not only promote the number of PhD applications, it would also make research positions lucrative.

But of course that is only the first step. Once we get more people going back to college for higher studies, it would also enable better networking with like minded people and improve the chances of the next gen tech startups.

By: Kalpesh

Kalpesh — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 06:16:29 +0000

The mindset can bring about a lot of change.

How can one be great, when they are surrounded by people who scare you with the fear of failure?

Whether we become technologically advanced or not - time can tell. IMHO, we should not become hindrance to other people's growth (in life, work, education etc). We have to be a nation - where the privileged ones can pull the under-privileged people, with their own efforts.

What use is education - when it can't bring about change in people's lives at basic level? We can goto moon & kids in the streets of India don't get basic education.

All of us are responsible for such a sorry state. There is an article on knowledge@wharton saying "Indians are privately smart & publicly dumb" - saying we will jump at getting benefits in short term - ignoring the long term effects.

Just my viewpoint - I neither agree nor disagree with what smart people have to say.