IIT-Madras Alumni to Support ‘Research Knowledge Clusters’ Promoted by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India
Chennai, 15 Nov. 2021
IIT Madras Alumni Association (IITMAA) is roping in experts from its member base of over 50,000 alumni and faculty to serve as Subject Matter Experts for the ‘Research Knowledge Clusters’ promoted by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of India across the country.
As a collaborative partner of the Strategic Alliances Division of the Office of the PSA, IITMAA will also take up various capacity building initiatives to support researchers, academia, and the students from the knowledge clusters. The key projects include training sessions to develop their skills in scientific communication and making of research proposals. The association will also help the Office of the PSA to promote game-based learning in schools and colleges. The project envisages the creation of a National Games Repository with thousands of quality games for education available to all educational institutions in India.
IITMAA has collaborated with the Office of the PSA for the past 18 months. It is a member of the Expert Consultation Group of Innovation and Science @ Bharat, the national innovation portal of the Office of the PSA. The two organisations together had recently conducted a survey on the Public Attitude to Science and Technology, and published a report on ‘STI in the Era of New Normal’ report.
Commenting about the collaboration with IITMAA, Prof. Vijay Raghavan, the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, said, “IITMAA has been an invaluable knowledge partner for us. In the past 18 months, its members actively supported us in capacity building initiatives. IITMAA is helping us tap the knowledge, skills, and resources of its alumni as Subject Matter Experts. We look forward to working closely with IITMAA to strengthen our industry-academia initiatives that immensely benefit researchers, academia, and students of our knowledge clusters across the country.”
In her comments about the future projects planned with IITMAA, Dr. Sapna Poti, Director, Strategic Alliances, Office of the PSA, said, “The IITMAA ecosystem will be helping researchers of the higher education institutions in our network acquire skills for effectively presenting their R&D proposals both to technical experts and to business executives. The project on game-based learning will help students of schools and higher education institutions learn complex subjects in a fun way. We will also be collaborating in the areas of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene, and Women-in-STEM.”
Talking about the alumni support, Mr. Krishnan Narayanan, President, IITMAA, said, “We consider our association with the Office of the PSA a great honour and an opportunity for our alumni to give back to India. The partnership aligns well with our “Mission Million Smiles” initiative that aims at creating a positive impact on the lives of at least one million people in the country and rest of the world in two years by taking up many Science, Technology, and Innovation projects.”
Mr. Ananth Agasthya, alumnus of IIT Madras and the former dean of HAL Management Academy, is heading the initiative of training researchers in scientific communication. The project on game-based learning will be implemented under the guidance of alumni, Prof. Preeti Aghalayam, Professor, Indian Institute of Technology – Madras, and Mr. Kartic Vaidyanathan, founder of a startup, LetUsPlayToLearn, in association with Prof L.S. Shashidhara, a mentor to the Office of the PSA’s knowledge clusters in Delhi and Pune.
The Office of the PSA is also promoting Special Interest Groups (SIGs) to devise plans for the country to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). IITMAA will support these SIGs in the area of SDGs and emerging technologies.
