Edtech startup DUX Education to stop operations in April

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March 2, 2023

DUX Education, an edtech startup, will stop operations in April 2023 after struggling to raise funds during the startup ecosystem’s funding winter.

Rohit Jain, Founder and CEO, DUX Education, said the Bengaluru-based company will continue to run until March 31, 2023.

“We realised six months ago that it was getting harder to raise funds, so we had to manage operations. As a result, we complied with the request to stop activities, said Jain.

He also said that the edtech company would continue to function through the end of March because parents and students rely on it to get them through this academic year.

The change occurs at a time when edtech unicorns are experiencing losses, firing staff, scaling back expansion plans, and attempting to spend as little money as possible due to a funding shortage.

Dharmendra Pradhan and Education Minister of Australia to sign an agreement on mutual recognition of qualifications

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digitalLEARNING Network

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March 1, 2023

Australian Education Minister Jason Clare and Dharmendra Pradhan will sign an agreement to improve student mobility, during his trip to India from February 28 to March 3.

To encourage institutional partnerships and foster increased collaboration between the two nations, he is heading a delegation of Australian higher education leaders.

In order to promote our institutional partnerships and foster cooperation between our two nations, I will be leading a delegation of Australian higher education leaders this week to India. The Mechanism for the Mutual Recognition of Qualifications, which establishes the guidelines for recognition to receive education in both of our countries. It will be signed during this week’s visit by Minister Pradhan and me, he said in a statement.

This will be the most comprehensive and advantageous recognition deal India has ever signed with another nation, and it will increase student mobility between the two, said Clare.

“By 2035, the National Education Policy of the Modi government aims to enrol 50% of young Indians in higher education and vocational training. For India, that is a game-changing event, and there is a real chance for Australian education providers to work more closely with India, according to Clare.

Former Australian cricketer and worldwide brand ambassador for the University of Wollongong, Adam Gilchrist, will also join the delegation. This occurs before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visit to India next month.

According to the statement, “the visit presents a significant chance for Australian universities to showcase new partnerships and plans which they can achieve in India, including opportunities for joint degrees and campuses.”

Edtech Unicorn PhysicsWallah forms joint venture with Utkarsh Classes

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February 28, 2023

E-learning platform Utkarsh Classes and edtech unicorn PhysicsWallah (PW) have formed a joint venture (JV) to offer students academic training and course offerings in various categories.

In order to provide value-added education for all exams and jointly foray into new exam categories, the two parties intend to capitalise on each other’s core strengths, the firms said in a statement.

“The founding teams (of PW and Utkarsh Classes) have a solid vision of offering quality education with a focus on results to every student in the nation at a reasonable cost, “Alakh Pandey, Founder and CEO of PhysicsWallah, said. “Our partnership will enable us to provide better services to students throughout India and enhance their educational opportunities.

This news of joint venture comes at a time when edtech companies are focusing on hybrid due to a drop in demand since schools and colleges began reopening gradually.

PW will receive help from Utkarsh Classes, which has been offering offline courses for more than 20 years, to improve its offline operations and create a strong hybrid learning model. In accordance with this partnership, PW will continue to operate offline centres in 32 cities across India while Utkarsh Classes will extend the category of government exam preparation.

With PW Vidyapeeth, PhysicsWallah made a practical foray last year. The edtech unicorn announced that it will increase its reach by establishing more Vidyapeeths and scale up in the categories of all-India competitive exams.

PM Modi emphasis on industry-oriented education system

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February 27, 2023

Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) has reoriented education and skilling according to young people’s aptitudes, emphasising the need for an “industry-oriented” education system to meet the rising demand for a skilled workforce as India is becoming a global manufacturing hub.

Our educational system should be applied and industry-focused, and the Budget has set the stage for that. Our educational system has suffered from uniformity over the years. We have made changes to this. Speaking at a post-Budget webinar on “Harnessing Youth Power – Skilling and Education,” he said. We reoriented education and skilling according to the aptitude of the youth and the needs of the coming times.

In order to guarantee that children get “outside-the-classroom exposure,” Modi emphasised that India is adopting the global trend of “on-the-job learning,” with a special concentration on offering internships and apprenticeships.

According to him, there are currently 75,000 employers on the National Internship Portal, where 25 lakh internship needs have been listed. The industry and educational institutions were encouraged by the prime minister to utilise the portal to its fullest potential and develop the nation’s internship culture.

He stated the opinion that apprenticeships will prepare the nation’s youth for the future and assist businesses in locating labour with the necessary skills.

In order to guarantee that children get “outside-the-classroom exposure,” Modi emphasised that India is adopting the global trend of “on-the-job learning,” with a special concentration on offering internships and apprenticeships.

According to him, there are currently 75,000 employers on the National Internship Portal, where 25 lakh internship needs have been listed. The industry and educational institutions were encouraged by the prime minister to utilise the portal to its fullest potential and develop the nation’s internship culture.

He stated the opinion that apprenticeships will prepare the nation’s youth for the future and assist businesses in locating labour with the necessary skills.

V Ramgopal Rao, former IIT Delhi Director appointed as group Vice Chancellor for BITS Institutions

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February 24, 2023

The Indian Institute of Technology Delhi’s former director, Professor V. Ramgopal Rao, has been named the new vice chancellor of BITS Pilani, which has campuses in Pilani, Goa, Hyderabad, Dubai, and Mumbai. By March 10th, 2023, Rao will take the position of Professor Souvik Bhattacharyya, who is currently the vice-chancellor of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani.

Professor Rao was welcomed to BITS Pilani by chancellor Kumar Mangalam Birla “With campuses in Pilani, Goa, Hyderabad, Dubai, and Mumbai, I’m pleased to introduce the appointment of Professor V. Ramgopal Rao as the new vice chancellor of BITS Pilani. Professor Rao comes to us from IIT Delhi, where he previously served as the institute’s director from 2016 to 2021. He is presently a Pillay Chair Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department.”

He continued, “Princeton Rao served as a P K Kelkar Chair Professor for Nanotechnology in the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay, before entering IIT Delhi as the Director in April 2016.

Rao tweeted, “After 25 years of being a part of the #IIT system in various capacities both at IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi, it’s time to move on and take up new responsibilities. I will be joining as the Group Vice Chancellor for the BITS institutions in Pilani, Hyderabad, Goa, Dubai and Mumbai.”

Also Read | Abhay Jere appointed as Vice Chairman of AICTE

He also holds a degree from Germany and honorary doctorate from three universities in India. He holds Member memberships in the IEEE, TWAS, INAE, INSA, IASC, and NASI. Rao is a researcher in the area of nanoelectronics and sensors who has won more than 35 awards and honours from around the world. He has more than 480 research articles to his credit and more than 50 patents. Numerous national groups overseeing India’s education, research, and innovation programmes are presided over by V Ramgopal Rao.

Camp K12, Edtech startup layoffs 70% of staff: reports

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February 23, 2023

The edtech startup Camp K12 is the most recent provider of online education to reduce staff as students return to school and venture capital companies stop providing funding. According to reports, the Gurugram-based company let go 70% of its staff.

A report claims that the coding edtech company has failed to pay its employees’ dues. Anshul Bhagi, a 2010 graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Business School, created Camp K12.

Anshul Bhagi founded Camp K12 in 2010, which links students from kindergarten through 12th grade with instructors for interactive, gamified, and live-learning STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Mathematics) courses. In the past year, edtech companies in India have let go of thousands of workers. Particularly, the $22 billion edtech unicorn BYJU’S and the SoftBank-backed Unacademy, Vedantu, and Tiger Global all reduced their workforces. 20% of the staff from Unacademy’s affiliate, Relevel, were also let go in January of this year.

India’s aspiration to build world-class universities: role of international collaborations

Higher Education

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February 23, 2023

The University of Virginia has inaugurated a new partnership with Jindal Global University (JGU) – one of India’s leading private universities located near New Delhi – to provide a significant new platform for student and scholar exchange, joint research on topics of global importance such as democracy and environmental sustainability, and a general expansion of UVA’s engagement in India.

UVA Provost Ian Baucom and JGU Vice Chancellor Raj Kumar signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) committing to the partnership during Kumar’s visit to Charlottesville during the week of November 14 with five of JGU Deans and other senior staff. The document will serve as a foundation for more agreements between UVA and JGU schools and institutes to support student exchanges, joint research and symposia, and other collaborative activities.

Ian Baucom said that JGU emerged as an attractive partner because of our common values of public service, academic freedom, and strong interdisciplinarity in preparing our students to be productive members of society. “Jindal’s commitment to building a strong liberal arts core and focus on combining its students’ academic achievement with practical experience is particularly noteworthy and will offer our students and scholars rich opportunities,” he said.

Also read: Top 20 percentile students of each board eligible for admission to IITs and NITs

Provost Baucom mentioned that a university cannot exist or solve problems of today’s world in isolation within its own borders. “By engaging across boundaries with distinguished international partners like Jindal, we will substantially increase our success in expanding knowledge on, and devising effective solutions to, problems that have global dimensions such as climate change and effective health care,” he said.

The Founding Vice Chancellor of O.P. Jindal Global University Kumar, Prof. (Dr.) C. Raj Kumar said that the partnership will allow the students to develop a holistic understanding of the globalised world with cooperation in exchanging knowledge, perspectives, and cultural experiences. “The partnership will provide transformative prospects of higher education and learning to students in both the universities and enable our faculty members to pursue joint teaching and collaborative research with a view to advancing the cause of international education and institution building,” he said. The MOU paves the way for opportunities to promote student exchange programs as well as faculty exchange programs. It creates opportunities for dual degree programs and pathways programs in which students from both countries and both institutions are able to pursue degrees in each other’s universities. This I believe is a very important facet of the national education policy, and also the current thinking within the government when it comes to public policy in relation to higher education and internationalization. The MOU also looks at joint conferences, joint research initiatives and joint publications. It essentially enables intellectual partnership between two major institutions. The University of Virginia was established by none other than Thomas Jefferson, and we aim to draw inspiration from the world’s best universities to build capacity in India.”

Launched in 2009, JGU has swiftly developed into one of India’s consistently top-ranked institutions with 10,000 students, a highly internationalized faculty with a 1:9 ratio to students, and a substantial budget for further growth. Under the leadership of Kumar, a Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Law alumnus, the university has grown into 12 schools with faculties dedicated to law, business, liberal arts/humanities, media studies/communications, public policy, international relations, and public health/human development.

The Indian government’s new National Education Policy (NEP) promises to liberalize Indian education system removing the obstacles to international engagement, including a substantial easing of barriers to the work of international universities within India. JGU is one of 14 “institutions of eminence” that the Indian government has identified as particularly prestigious universities that enjoy special autonomy and privileges enabling them to play leading roles in shaping Indian higher education.

UVA’s Vice Provost for Global Affairs Ambassador Stephen D Mull said that the time is ripe for expanded U.S. engagement with Indian higher education, which will be vital for universities like UVA that want to have a global impact. “The country is the world’s biggest democracy with a population bigger than the U.S., Europe and Latin America combined,” he said adding that India has brilliant students, scholars and entrepreneurs who want to partner on some of the world’s biggest challenges. Since 2019, the number of new Indian graduate and professional students studying in the United States has skyrocketed by 430%, clearly indicating vast potential for higher Indian enrollments here at UVA.”

I came to work at the University of Virginia for many years serving as a US diplomat. I didn’t need any convincing about the strategic importance of India and the importance of developing a very strong relationship with India because India, from our perspective, is only going to be playing a greater role in the world. An important part of this emerging strategic relationship has to be a very close relationship. between our two academic communities. The University of Virginia is one of the oldest public universities in the United States. As Professor Kumar mentioned, it was founded by our third President Thomas Jefferson who believed it was vitally important for our democracy to succeed to have institutions like the University of Virginia to prepare citizens to fully participate in the life of democracy. That was a challenge when our University was founded in 1818. In fact, one might say, it’s an even greater challenge today. With all the considerable threats and challenges we democracies face in common or the different places around the world.”

Along with the Ambassador Stephen D. Mull, Vice Provost for Global Affairs, the academic delegation of University of Virginia includes Professor Nicole Jenkins, Dean, McIntire School of Commerce; Professor Jennifer Bair, Associate Dean for the Social Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences; Mr. Dudley Doane, Director, International Studies Office; Professor Pankaj Gupta, Director, Yamuna River Project; Ms. Judi Byers, Director of Admissions, McIntire School of Commerce; Ms. Darci Spuck, Director of Advancement, McIntire School of Commerce and Dr. Ingrid Hakala, Director, Global Internship Program.

Digital University to lower the cost of higher education in India: Dharmendra Pradhan

Higher Education

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February 22, 2023

According to Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, India is establishing a digital university that will significantly lower the cost of higher education and vocational training in the nation. Several entry and exit points are being developed in the educational system to give young people mobility between the general and skill education streams, according to the minister of education, skill development, and entrepreneurship.

In a virtual address to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit on Monday, Pradhan stated, “We are putting up Digital University, which will substantially decrease the cost of higher education and skill education and enhance accessibility to a wide variety of education and skill programmes.”

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an eight-member permanent intergovernmental international organisation that improves bilateral ties and regional security. Its members are China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

The minister stated, “We are now developing various entry and exit points in the educational system, providing youngsters with the horizontal and vertical mobility between disciplines — general education and skill education.”

Dharmendra Pradhan launches ‘Jaadui Pitara’ learning material for Balvatika

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February 21, 2023

At least 1,200 central government-run schools will be mandated to use “Jaadui Pitara,” a play-based learning resource for kids aged three to eight, starting in the upcoming academic year, according to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

One of the most important recommendations of the new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 would be fulfilled by this cutting-edge, child-centric learning approach, according to Pradhan.

The government introduced a national curriculum framework (NCF) for foundation or early childhood care in October of last year in accordance with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which advises against using textbooks with children between the ages of three and six. Also, it placed a focus on encouraging learning based on play, lived experience, and the usage of one’s mother tongue.

The ministry consequently introduced play-based materials for kids enrolled in Balvatika, which includes classes for nursery, lower kindergarten (LKG), and upper kindergarten (UKG).

While there won’t be a book for Balvatikas 1 (nursery) and 2 (LKG), Pradhan indicated that students in Balvatika 3 (UKG) would be introduced to a playbook. Only classes 1 and 2 will be required to use textbooks, and they will only be used as examples.

He stated that the textbooks for classes 1 and 2 will be released by the NCERT by the end of this month.

Playbooks, activity books, workbooks, toys, manuals for teachers and trainers, flashcards, narrative cards, posters, puzzles, puppets, and kid-friendly publications are all included in the “Jaadui Pitara” (magic collection).

As stated in the NEP 2020, “it is a major stride towards improving the learning-teaching environment and making it more child-centric, dynamic, and joyous for the ‘Amrit Generation’.” Pradhan added. He explained that the reason it was called Jaadui Pitara (Magic Collection) was because it possessed the charm of variety, flexibility, and inclusiveness.

According to a statement from the ministry, the play-based teaching and learning materials place a strong emphasis on children’s growth in five areas: physical development, socio-emotional and ethical development, cognitive development, language and literacy development, and aesthetic and cultural development.

AI Beyond Chatbots: Revolutionising Civil Engineering: Dr. Sanjay Goel, JK Lakshmipat University

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February 20, 2023

Governments and the private sector are investing heavily in building new infrastructure, with the global construction market estimated to grow from $7.3 trillion in 2021 to $14.4 trillion in 2030. The construction industry is constantly evolving with new technologies and materials. According to Google Scholar, more than 3.3 lakh research papers, reports, and patents published in the last five years include the word “civil engineering.” Despite the growth in the industry, common risks such as poor productivity, cost overruns, delays, quality issues, health and safety hazards, lack of coordination, change orders, environmental damage, weather-related issues, legal disputes, etc., can impede infrastructure development. Modern technologies in civil engineering and computing can together accelerate construction activities to meet growing infrastructure demands. With 75% of the infrastructure needed for 2050 not yet built, these technologies are playing a crucial role in infrastructure development.

Computing Technologies in Civil Engineering

The first International Conference on Civil and Structural Engineering Computing, Civil-Comp, was held in London in 1983. Since 1986, Wiley has been regularly publishing a scholarly journal, Computer-Aided Civil, and Infrastructure Engineering. The first issue published papers on remote video sensing of highways, creativity support systems for planning, design, and decision support, CAD, knowledge-based systems, FEM analysis, etc. Computing continues to support all subfields of civil engineering – construction, structural, transportation, geotechnical, environmental, and hydraulic engineering. It is used for research, designing structures like bridges, dams, docks, roads, airports, railways, canals, pipelines, waste disposal and flood control systems, and large buildings; determining construction methods and materials, establishing control systems, directing maintenance and repair, analysing soil and rock behaviour and designing structural foundations, analysing stability, analysing a wide range of data, etc.

Despite many exciting developments, the construction industry is still one of the least digitised industries. However, because of rapid infrastructure expansion and pressures of productivity, efficiency, quality, safety, and sustainability, the use of computing technologies in civil engineering is now increasing more rapidly as shown by the exponential increase in related journal publications and the expected quadrupling of the market sizes for construction management software and IoT in construction by 2030.

AI in Civil Engineering

Combined with other computing technologies, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has also been widely used in civil engineering to explore alternative ways to solve complex and ill-defined problems. Google Scholar shows more than 1.4 lakh search results for research papers, reports, and patents, published since the 1960s, in this area. The market size of AI in construction is projected to grow eightfold by 2030. In the early years, several rule-based expert systems were developed to support a variety of civil engineering tasks, e.g., estimating floods, designing buildings, bridge superstructures, diagnosis of building defects and dam seepages, geotechnical analysis, generating traffic control plans, deciding emergency responses in chemical spills, evaluation of hazardous waste sites, etc. In the 1986 conference on Expert Systems in Civil Engineering, USA, papers were presented on construction schedule analysis, decision-making and risk analysis, seismic risk analysis systems, inactive hazardous waste site characterization, site selection, etc. However, knowledge acquisition was the biggest challenge in developing such expert systems.

AI has been used for optimisation, project planning, structural health monitoring for preventive maintenance, quality control, safety, and disaster recovery. The use of robotics in the construction industry has risen with 3D printing, exoskeletons, and UAVs. The integration of IoT with AI has brought many advancements to the construction industry like using AI for energy-saving on demand and intelligent building energy monitoring, IoT-enabled BIM for real-time visibility and traceability in prefabricated construction, and implementing early warning and alarm systems in underground construction sites. AI combined with BIM is used to optimise the design for offsite construction, materials selection, reuse and recovery, waste-efficient procurement, deconstruction, and flexibility. Secure, decentralised solutions offering increased transparency in the construction data exchange can be created by combining AI with blockchain.

Interdisciplinary education for preparing Infrastructure AI Engineers

The challenges of the era of Circular and NetZero economies and Industry 4.0 require interdisciplinary solutions to engineering problems. The growth of software engineering automation platforms like GitHub Copilot and APIs for large-scale deep learning models like GPT and LaMDA are making domain expertise and systems engineering approaches even more crucial for developing AI systems in specific industries. An Infrastructure AI Engineer will combine knowledge of civil engineering and AI to develop AI systems to support the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of infrastructure systems. Both civil engineering and computer science and engineering programmes can prepare graduates to take on such roles. The civil engineering curriculum should accommodate infrastructure-related computing topics like CAD, CAE, FEM, GIS, BIM, etc., as well as a few generic computing and AI courses. Most CSE programmes already include courses on AI and many universities are also offering B.Tech. programs in AI, though with a very minor difference only in the curriculum. Modern curriculum for CSE or AI programmes must also include a few courses in physical engineering disciplines and also some experience in related computing, e.g., CAD, CAE, GIS, BIM, etc. M. Tech in AI after B.Tech. in civil engineering is also an alternate approach.

As envisioned in the NEP, modern engineering education should provide students a balanced experience in their main discipline, other engineering disciplines, modern computing and engineering technologies, and also non-engineering disciplines. However, as John Good lad said, “Pedagogy, not curriculum, is the key to educational reform,” it is even more important to create active-learning oriented integrated interdisciplinary educational experiences by breaking down the silos between the physical engineering and computing and promote some collaborative interdisciplinary teaching experiences involving faculty from multiple departments.

Views expressed by Dr. Sanjay Goel, Director of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, JK Lakshmipat University, Jaipur

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