New Year Resolutions

It is a fad to have New Year resolutions. Some of the popular new year resolutions are Quit Smoking, Read a book etc. Now a days the Internet helps you to find ideas on New Year resolutions. Take a look at this and this and this. All these picked from a simple Google search.

Does an Institute make new year resolutions? It may be a little unusual but yes.

Tradition dictates that every 365 days, you should try to kick bad habits and start your life anew. So the idea is to sit down with a cup of coffee, a paper and a pen, and reflect: What kinds of New Years Resolutions will we make for Institute this January 1st?

I have a few ideas about a few things we should not do and a few things we should do as an Institute.

Develop a sense of belonging and ownership:

We are a very new Institute. Being a Government Institute there are no owners of the Institute except the Government itself. So what is meaning of a sense of belonging and ownership. The students and faculty now call this Institute my Institute. When the students will pass out and do not live on the campus any more, they will still call it my Institute. They will take pride in good things that the Institute does. The Institute will do well only when its faculty, students and its Alumni do well. It is a challenge of very high order.

Develop a Innovator's mindset:

I had said on many occasions that the Institute should be a technology play ground. I am afraid we are far from being a technology playground. To use technology and to develop technology should be trait with everyone in the Institute. We need to take some positive and proactive steps to kickstart this habit.

Develop an atmosphere of certainty:

Lack of precision and certainty is a prevailing characteristic of Indian way of life. IIIT has inherited some of these characteristics. In our communication, we need to develop a sense of precision and in our action, we need to develop a sense of certainty.

Foundation Day Debate

Finally, on 19th Dec we had finals of the Foundation Day debate.

I am an ardent fan of debates. I almost never miss Big Fight on NDTV. The debates bring the best minds to cross swords intellectually. My personal favourites are Suhel Seth, Swapan Dasgupta, Vinod Mehta. Our own Jay Panda also is a good speaker on national channels.

Recently, there was a interesting series of debates called Intelligence squared debate on BBC. The format is pretty routine. There are two teams of two members each. The teams speak in turns, take questions from the audience and then sum up. What is interesting is the way the winner is decided. At the start of the debate the audience is made to vote for and against the topic. Then, at the end they are allowed to vote. The winner is decided by the amount of audience win by a team. This format is very novel.

One of my favourite movies is The Great Debators. Directed by Danzig Washington, produced by Winfrey Oprah, the movie is based on a true story. It is about a debating team from a black college beating the Harvard team in a national finals. This movie was screened during the orientation programme of our first batch of M.Tech. Students. The arguments, rejoinders, rebuttals are truely enjoyable to watch.

I witnessed last 10 minutes of the Finals of the Foundation Day debate. I was a little disappointed. The audience was thin. The format of the debate was like a GD. The arguments were shallow. But the debators exhibited energy and passion.

Prof. Tanutrishna did put in a lot of hardwork to make this happen. She and Lipika did a good job of pushing a reluctant bunch of students to take a small faltering step in making what possible can be an iconic annual event of the Institute in future.

The CAT fails online

The failure of the CAT - the entrance examination is in news now a days.

My experience with On-Line entrance goes back a many years ago when XLRI tried to convert XAT to a on-line test. It was a disaster too. The entire exam was cancelled on the day it was supposed to begin. Problems were many: the company was inexperienced, infrastructure was inadequate, logistics of testbank delivery was uncertain. I had raised many of these questions with the company. They paid attention to the question bank security and overlooked the logistical issues.

Many of those problems are a thing of the past. The infrastructure is fairly good. There are many agencies who have made a business of on-line testing. The applicants are computer savvy. Hence, it is a right time for the IIMs to go on-line.

Are there any benefits of conducting a on-line test. To my mind there are none. The speed of processing improves by a few days. But it takes many more days to conduct the test. You have to buid a huge question bank which is a difficult task. The glamour associated with on-line testing is fading.

If a foreign agency conducts the on-line test, will it succeed. Not necessarily as the CAT experience shows. But the IIM have the excuse that they awarded the task to a reputed agency.

Why did the CAT failed online. One, heterogenous environment, two, the scale of operations, three, insufficient preparations.

There are lessions for software development in CAT experience. When you have no option but to take a bigbang approach to software deployment, what should you do. Prometric will answer with hindsight.

Anniversary Galore

The month of November and the Year 2009 are unusual in many ways as they are anniversary months for many important events and mark significant milestones.

This is the month when the Foundation Stone of IIIT was laid. IIIT is going to to be 3 years old. We are very young Institute indeed. How will we celebrate our Foundation day? I have asked Prof. Tanitrishna to organize a foundation day debate among the students. This will the topic of my next blog.

This is the year when we have started our B.Tech. programme. We hope to start our Ph.D. programme this year too. We walked on the long corridors of the newly constructed building this year.

Every one is talking about Sachin's 20 years in cricket. Sunil Gavaskar was there for about 17 years. What is Sachin's secret for such long tenure in cricket? To my mind, it is his raw talent, simple life style and staying away form captaincy. The last one is the most important. Most good players after assuming captaincy have lost their touch. Sachin is smart enough to avoid the trappings of captaincy and stick to his core competency: just play cricket.

This month twenty years ago, the Berlin wall came down marking the end of communism. I still remember the debate: will West Germany pull up East Germany or will the East Germany bring down West Germany, Will the combined Germanies lead to another world war. Fortunately, the German nation has not led to another war. The Berlin wall signifies the artificial walls we create to foster our own interest.

This is the fortieth year of Internet. Internet has been a game changing technology. Countries like India have benefited immensely. The penetration of Internet is still slow. We need to hasten this process and the break the digital divide. I watched a Bob Metcalfe (inventor of ethernet) interview on Youtube. He talks about how in 40 years we have got clean and abundant Internet Bandwidth. For him the next challenge is the give the world clean and abundant energy in next 40 years.

This month we celebrate Jawaharlal Nehru's Birth day as the Children's day. My wife who is the president of Innerwheel club, celebrated children's day with the students in Malipada M.E. school near IIIT campus. The condition of the school is bad and there are hardly 25 students in the school. While we extol our achievements in higher education, our primary education is in shambles. We need to ask ourselves what needs to be done to bolster out primary education system.

A Busy Week with NPTEL, Damascus Sword and Nebula

Last week was a unusually busy one.

To start with Prof. Roddam Narasimha visited IIIT on last sunday. He was on his way back to Bangalore from BPUT convocation. I had written about him earlier.

Prof. Mangala Sundar of IIT Madras visited BPUT in connection with NPTEL. I was there in my capacity as the Chairman of ICT committee of BPUT. He wanted more discussion with me. So I invited him to IIIT. He discussed NPTEL and other issues with me. I have experimented a lot with Technology Enabled Learning in the past. I shared my experience with him. He appreciated that a lot and wanted our involvement in NPTEL development.

Prof. Omkar Nath Mohanty visited to address the students. He spoke about his research on development of auto-body parts. Fluent, incisive, and lucid was his talk. He, of course, aout damascus sword and India's metallurgical prowess in the millenia gone by. I demonstrated our Hibiscus to him. He had a look around the campus and expressed his appreciation.

Finally, there was nebula. The students were planning for a party to welcome themselves since there are no seniors to welcome them. I told them that I will extend all support. They came out with an idea to invite some DJ. I told them that IIIT is about show casing student talent not a DJ's. They took my message and prepared well. They prepared a budget and discussed with the faculty about their plans.

On sunday (today), I reached about 10 minutes after 11 in the campus. The students told me that they will be about 20 minutes late. The programme began about 45 minutes behind schedule. The first few items were tentative with many hiccups. The girls danced with practically no music as the sound system could not be connected. Then the tempo picked up. Things got better as the time went on. There were dance, play, mimicry, quizzing, musical chair and many others. The students got the audience involved. They involved the faculty in a few items.

The anchoring was very good. Quite a few students participated. I was very happy with the quality of the programme.

Then, there was lunch. The students organized a banquet style lunch for the faculty. The students were very indulgent and fussed a lot over little conveniences of the faculty.

One can see a strong bonding developing among the students and Institute and the Faculty. I hope it continues to flourish and every student get an opportunity to exhibit his/her talent.

Prof. Roddam Narasimha visits IIIT

Prof. Narasimha was the speaker for BPUT convocation. He was to arrive in Bhubaneswar on 23rd, proceed to Rourkela, return to Bhubaneswar on 25th and fly back to Bangalore. VC Prof. Mohanty requested us to take care of him when he is in Bhubaneswar.

We received Prof. Narasimha at the airport. I had not met Prof. Narasimha before. Prof. Ajit Das had seen his photograph in his homepage. After trying three people, we could guess him right. We took him to the Raj Bhavan. As usual Raj Bhavan was full of bells and whistles. We had a tea with him. Then, we met the Governor HE Bhandare. He was watching golf on a tv channel while meeting his guests. He discussed about state of research India. After meeting the Governor, Prof. Narasimha proceeded for lunch. We discussed about the possibility of his addressing the students. He agreed to do that on Sunday.

On Saturday, we informed the students about the Lecture. We made it compulsory for resident students and optional for the day scholars. Some resident students wanted to go home for the weekend. We denied their request. One student said her parents have already come to take her home. Another said her mother has already cooked for her and it will be wasted if she doesn't go. We paid a deaf ear to all excuses and said no.

Prof Ajit Das picked Prof Narasimha and came to the campus. I went to IIIT right away. I ensured that the sound system etc were functioning. The lecturer was well attended. Prof Narasimha spoke about the research challenges he had faced in his very long career. He urged to students to pick research as a career. The students asked a few questions.

We took Prof. Narasimha to the Airport. Prof. Mohanty met us there. The flight was delayed for about 2 hours. Prof. Mohanty suggested we go to Khandagiri and Udayagiri. I had not visited the two hillocks for more than 10 years. Prof. Mohanty spoke at length about the historical significance of the two hills. He took Prof. Narasimha to the Airport.

I was impressed by the simplicity and scholarship of Prof. Narasimha. His knowledge about history, mythology was impressive. He is 76 and yet a very active researcher. I hope that his inspiration will work and some students will be motivated to take research as a career.

Diwali Celebrations

There are a few celebrations in India which transcend religious barriers. Diwali, Holi, Christmas are among them. I wanted the Diwali celebration in IIIT to be a special one. When I discussed with faculty members, they pointed out that the exams are going on. Hence, any Institute initiated celebration will be distraction for the student. Though I was not convinced, I relented. Then, a few students approached me with their proposal for diwali celebration. They wanted to share the diwali with families of the Campus Construction Workers. I thought that was a fine idea. Sweta Rout has been pestering me for a creativity club. I asked her to write her creative piece for Diwali. Here is her piece:

Diwali is the biggest festival of India that celebrates the victory of good over evil. This festival symbolizes the vanquishing of darkness and the emergence of light. We celebrated Diwali for the first time in our institution, IIIT. The festival was preceded by a lot of excitement and enthusiasm. The environment of IIIT on the day of Diwali was lull of traditional and religious passion. The girls worshipped Goddess Kali and offered prayers to her. We decorated our institution with candles and diyas. An eye-catching rangoli added to the charm of the crescendo. We also shared sweets with the workers who suffer tiresome days and nights for the construction of a world-class infrastructure of our institution. Then workers had decorated a board with candles depicting the name of our institution as “HAPPY DIWALI IIIT”, which was extremely stupendous. We, then, burnt a lot of fire crackers which included the ones that made a stunning view of colorful stars in the air. The guards guided throughout the celebration to make it a safe Diwali for us. The bonfire made the day more exciting with a delicious dinner made by the mess. It was certainly a day of celebration and an amiable experience for all the IIITians.

I am happy that the students have shown the initiative and celebrated a special festival in a very unique fashion.