With various government initiatives like Digital India and Make in India, the technology sector has seen tremendous growth. This presents a huge opportunity for universities to set their students apart by adapting advancements made by the industry and incorporating it into the course curriculum. Progressive universities like JNTU-Anantapur and RGPV, Bhopal in India are moving past redundant curriculum and are looking at subject matter experts to expand the scope to align with the current industry standards and integrate it into the courses offered to aspiring engineers.
TI Centre of excellence at RGPV connects curriculum with Industry
In great news for students and the education ecosystem of India, Rajiv Gandhi Proudyogiki Vishwavidyalaya (RGPV) announced the inauguration of the Texas Instruments (TI) Center of Excellence. This initiative from RGPV will successfully bridge the diverging gap between academia and current industry requirements.
| Over the years, RGPV has been consistently striving to be a leading example in propagating effective and relevant technical education, the best in research, and the latest technical innovations. The TI Center of Excellence (COE) will further propel RGPV’s vision and initiatives with these objectives by effectively giving students access to cutting-edge industry technology and expertise. As a first step towards this initiative, Sapience Consulting has conducted hands-on workshops for the faculty of RGPV affiliated colleges. These workshops were based on TI technology and also focused on the applications and systems approach, in order to inculcate core analog and microcontroller understanding. Professor Piyush Trivedi, honorable Vice Chancellor of RGPV is the visionary who has propagated this change; a change that promises to rearrange the very blueprint of technical academia. One essential component to this is that Trivedi has constantly had his fingers on the pulse of technical education and industry in the world. The relevance of what the TI Center of Excellence offers to universities in current industry standards is truly ground-breaking. The Vice Chancellor has brought about a change that directly affects the students and the value that the university will bring to their careers. The VC and the university have set a prime example for colleges and educational institutes across the country. |
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RGPV, Bhopal and Sapience Consulting, partner with TI’s India University Program, signed a memorandum of understanding in March 2015 to establish a collaboration framework based on the following principals:
- RGPV to adopt TI technology in analog and embedded space into UG curriculum across ECE, EI, and EX departments applicable to its 219 constituent and affiliated engineering colleges.
- Sapience Consulting to train the faculty of RGPV constituent and affiliated colleges on Texas Instruments technology.
- Sapience Consulting to set up Texas Instruments (TI) Center of Excellence where faculty and students can work on TI technology for their projects, research, and curriculum labs. This center can also be the nodal point for RGPV to collaborate with local industry and strengthen academia, and industry partnership.
The Texas Instruments Centre of Excellence was inaugurated by Shri Umashankar Gupta, Minister for Higher Education, Technical Education and Skill Development. Speaking on the occasion he acknowledged and immensely appreciated the efforts of the RGPV to advance technical education in the state and added that students need to find solutions to problems in their vicinity which, would help in developing the state, as well as improve employability.
Hands-on analog systems curriculum in JTNU Anantapur
Universities around the world are rethinking their engineering curriculum, especially when it comes to teaching analog concepts. The days of focusing primarily on analog circuit design, often perceived as mundane and tedious by students, are giving way to a hands-on, systems approach where students can create practical applications to ignite their curiosity.
Such is the case in India, where JNTU Anantapur has revised its undergraduate curriculum to reflect the latest industry market trends. The Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE) department has adopted a systems approach for two of its undergraduate courses — Linear Integrated Circuits and Introduction to Microcontrollers — with the lab experiments based on TI technology.
Students from 118 colleges affiliated with JNTU Anantapur will use the Analog Systems Lab Kit (ASLK) PRO and an ultra-low-power MSP430 LaunchPad to perform a wide variety of lab experiments and to carry out mini projects in a variety of application areas, such as medical electronics, smart metering and more.
Prof. Lal Kishore, honorable Vice Chancellor of JNTU-A
Speaking at the launch, Prof. Lal Kishore, honorable Vice Chancellor of JNTU-A said “We are happy with the support rendered by Texas Instruments to build faculty capabilities at the university. We hope to further strengthen the technical skills of faculty and students in TI technology through this collaboration”.
With various government initiatives like Digital India and Make in India, the technology sector has seen tremendous growth. This presents a huge opportunity for universities to set their students apart by adapting the advancements made by the industry and incorporating it into the curriculum. A few progressive universities are moving past redundant curriculum and are looking at subject matter experts to expand the scope to align with the current industry standards and integrate it into the courses offered to aspiring engineers.
This will further bridge the gap between industry and academia with JNTU-A incorporating Texas Instrument technology in curricula of its affiliated colleges in Electronics and Communication engineering. This amalgamation will help students learn real world concepts and complement it with a unique hands-on experience in their respective domains. Trained and experienced faculty mentors will actively engage in imparting trainings and workshops to faculty and students of associated colleges around TI technologies.
“TI is committed to nurturing engineering talent and our university programs bring together everyone who is working towards the common goal of equipping our students with industry-necessary skill-sets,” said Sanjay Srivastava, Director - University Program, Texas Instruments India.
Professor Lal Kishore, Vice Chancellor, JNTU Anantapur inaugurating the Center of Excellence
Faculty members and students alike are encouraged to use TI’s online training portal, which includes online training for TI Precision Labs –Op Amps and Getting Started with MSP430 Launchpad. Students can also make use of the Analog Engineer's Pocket Reference which covers a wide variety of popular precision signal chain topics – from op amp bandwidth and stability to analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversions.
The result of this collaboration works in line with the ‘Make in India’ movement, encouraging a large part of the student population to take part in a process that aims at creating high quality products in India through innovation and minimizing the impact on the environment. TI technology and a state-of-the-art educational facility can help engineering students in India gain the technical expertise needed to become industry-ready when they graduate and go into the workforce.