Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu called upon higher education institutions and universities to review and align their existing courses to emerging global trends or start new courses in tune with national needs on Monday.

Addressing the sixth convocation of PES University in Bengaluru, the Vice President said that the 4th industrial revolution is knocking at the door and to make the best out of it, “our universities must train the students in emerging areas such as 5G technologies, artificial intelligence, robotics, and biotechnology.”

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Referring to India’s glorious past in the field of education, he emphasised the special role technological Universities have to play in transforming India into a knowledge power.

Commending the Government’s decision to open the space sector for private players, the Vice President praised the PES University for building and launching two satellites in association with DRDO and ISRO.

“I would urge our private institutions and universities to make the best use of this opportunity and to work towards making India self-reliant and technologically advanced in the space sector,” he said. On this occasion, Naidu also felicitated Dr. V Sambasiva Rao, who mentored the students in the launch of the two satellites.

Drawing attention to the tremendous benefits that drone technology offers to various sectors of the economy, Naidu opined that India, with its traditional strengths in innovation, IT, and frugal engineering, has the potential of becoming a global drone hub.

In this regard, he called for creating skilled manpower for this sector and expressed happiness that PES University is actively considering starting courses on Drone Technology.

The Vice President also emphasised the need to adopt a multidisciplinary approach to R&D and asked the universities to lay more emphasis on implementable patents under Intellectual Property rights (IPR) rather than academic patents to give a fillip to economy and industry.

He said that many technical books published by foreign authors are used in Indian engineering courses. He exhorted Indian academicians to author books of global standards on contemporary themes.

“Indian authors can better contextualize the engineering course content with regard to Indian socio-economic conditions,” he said.

Highlighting the importance of socially relevant research and technologies, the Vice President asked the universities to work on the issues of global priority such as climate change and sustainable development.

“We frequently read news reports about increasing pollution in Indian cities; I would urge our educational institutions to come up with technological solutions to such pressing problems faced by society, especially in agriculture” he added.

Appreciating the significant accomplishments made by PES University in its short journey, the Vice President complimented the Chancellor, Prof M R Doreswamy for mentoring the students towards excellence. Thaawarchand Gehlot, the Governor of Karnataka attended the event.