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Address by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, Former President of India at the Convocation of University of Information Technology and Sciences Dhaka, Bangladesh- 20 July 2009 |
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21st Century University: A Profile
"Science is borderles "
I am delighted to participate in the 1st Convocation of the University of Information Technology and Sciences (UITS), Dhaka. My greetings to the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Heads of Departments, faculty members, students, parents and distinguished guests participating in this convocation.
As I was studying UITS website, I was attracted by the vision of the university to be a world-class nucleating center of achievement and the mission of the university to contribute to sustainable economic growth of the country through a tripartite relationship between itself, industries, reputed universities and institutions at home and abroad. My best wishes to you in realizing such a vision and mission. I congratulate the candidates getting their degrees in this convocation. Dear young friends, while the UITS in a multidisciplinary environment has trained you in science and technology, as you progress in your life’s missions, there will be great demand on you to work and contribute in the areas of integrated systems and projects in a collaborative environment.
Hence, let me share with you a few experiences during my education and beyond. I have learnt that integrative and creative approaches are needed in the environment of challenging problem confronting the humanity. Education in the present century indeed has to be shaped as a borderless education which promotes virtual, interactive and collaborative learning. When I am with the graduating students, youth and experienced teachers, I would like to talk on the topic “21st Century University: A Profile”.
My first experience with integrated learning
First, I would like to give my experience with a teacher who taught me system design, system integration and system management in an integrated learning environment.
While I was studying Aeronautical Engineering in Madras Institute of Technology (MIT), Chennai, (1954-57), during the third year of my course, I was assigned a project with five other colleagues, to design a low-level attack aircraft. I was given the responsibility of system design and system integration with the group of five members. Also, I was responsible for aerodynamic and structural design of the project. The other five members of my team took up the design of propulsion, control, guidance, avionics and instrumentation systems of the aircraft. My design teacher Prof. Srinivasan, the then Director of MIT, was our guide. He reviewed the project after six months and declared my work to be gloomy and disappointing. He didn’t lend an ear to my difficulties in bringing together the data-base from multiple designers. I asked for a month’s time to complete the task, since I had to get the inputs from five of my other colleagues without which I cannot complete the system design. Prof. Srinivasan told me "Look, young man, today is Friday afternoon. I give you three days time, by Monday morning if I don’t get the configuration design, your scholarship will be stopped." I had a jolt of my life as scholarship was my lifeline, without which I cannot continue with my studies. There was no other way out, but to finish the task. My team felt the need for working together round the clock. We didn’t sleep that night, working on the drawing board in 1950s when computer system has not reached our college. On Saturday, I took just an hour’s break. On Sunday morning, when I was near completion, I felt someone’s presence in my laboratory. It was Prof. Srinivasan studying my progress. After looking at my work and the work of my team, he patted and hugged me affectionately. He had words of appreciation: "I knew I was putting you under pressure and asking you to meet a difficult deadline. You have done a great job in system design”.
Through this review mechanism and guidance of Prof Srinivasan, I was injected the necessity of understanding the value of time by each team member and brought out the best from the system design team. I realized that if something is at stake, the human minds get ignited and the working capacity gets enhanced manifold. That’s what exactly happened. The message is: whatever be the specialization, the students should be trained to systems approach and to work in projects, which will prepare them for new products, innovation and undertaking higher organizational responsibilities. A teacher has to be a coach like Prof. Srinivasan who has emphasized the need for research driven interdisciplinary project. I am confident that the University of Information Technology and Science will definitely be leading the students in integrated technology project which will call for system design, system integration and system management. This is what will make the graduates from UITS to become employable in global industry and the national establishment and industries and also enable them to become small entrepreneurs instead of becoming employment seekers.
Integrative approaches transform the world
In all the projects that I have dealt with during my professional career, including my Presidency, and even now, I have been coming across again and again how networking of individuals, disciplines, organizations, states and countries lead to innovative results and missions. We have been witnessing how complex missions demand synergizing diverse disciplines and groups across the world to take up new avenues of research, be it improving the quality of life, exploration of the unknown or bringing peace and preventing conflicts. We are enjoying the fruits of technology expanding physical travel and connectivity beyond any realm of imagination in the past centuries. While the humanity can be proud of this kind of non-linear growth of technology and expertise in many fields, impacting the world at large, are we up to the challenges that confront us today? Take any issue - be it energy independence or environment protection or understanding the atmosphere or exploration of outer space or increasing outreach of science or equitable distribution of prosperity and wealth or dealing with deadly diseases or weaning people away from drugs or combating terrorism or preserving the family ties, they all require the creativity of best of minds from any part of the world. Universities in every nation have to become the breeding ground for such creative minds.
Creative mind
Inventions and discoveries have emanated from creative minds that have been constantly working and imaging the outcome in the mind. With imaging and constant effort, all the forces of the universe, work for that inspired mind, thereby leading to inventions or discoveries. It is true in the case of the great poet of Bangladesh Kazi Nazrul Islam, Muhammad Yunus, SN Bose.
On 26 May morning, I visited EPF Lausanne, Switzerland and had discussion with the scientists in “Brain and Mind” laboratories and “Micro-Nanotechnologies laboratories”. At ETH Zurich which was the place where Einstein had the early education when he came from Germany, I visited the SN Bose-Einstein laboratory where six scientists were working on Bose Einstein condensate experiments. In both EPF and ETH laboratories I interacted with faculty and young researchers, and addressed the students. At EPF, I talked on the topic “Science is Borderless” and at ETH I talked on the topic “Technology and National Development”. I could see the creative talent embedded in the minds of researchers. Hence, dear friends, higher the number of creative minds in an organization, the best results of invention and discoveries will emerge. Unique academic environment is an enabler for great thinking that leads to creativity. Universities like UITS indeed have to be the generators of creative minds.
Education for sustainable growth
I have been picturing in my mind, the revolution that has taken place in university education itself, since my younger days. I have had the benefit of receiving quality education with value system from dedicated teachers. I remember, with gratitude, the educational institutions and the teachers for their guidance and the life missions that they enabled me to take up. The evolving education system and the successful accomplishments of many dynamic teams have changed the world immensely.
It is natural; therefore, the university system itself has to meet new requirements in the twenty first century. The number of universities and the number of students in universities have increased several folds and it will further increase substantially in coming years. The number of international students has multiplied considerably. With the mobility of citizens from one country to another, the students belonging to multiple cultures live in most of the cities of the world. The costs of educational system have increased and funds availability also is an important aspect. The teacher-student ratio is a major issue. For want of quantity, quality and particularly research should not suffer. The universities, in my view, need to address four important criteria.
a. The education has to address the needs of the citizen for contributing to the sustainable growth in various areas of national and global development.
b. It has to meet the diverse cultural needs.
c. It should ignite the minds towards research and enquiry.
d. It has to be cost effective for deserving students to take up subjects of their choice.
e. Teachers transform into coaches.
Technology through communication, media and internet has brought about a revolution in the education delivery, which needs to be used in conjunction with the direct teaching. The 21st century challenges faced by nations, require the universities to address disciplinary and interdisciplinary subjects of relevance to the society. Now the question is, is it possible that university education can drive sustainable growth of a nation?
Sometime back, I happened to read the Conference General report of the International Conference on Education for sustainable future in Sep 2003, which refers to central challenge for higher education for sustainability. Since it is relevant to this audience, I would like to quote.
“If higher education is the nursery of tomorrow’s leaders, then the universities bear profound responsibilities to create a sustainable future. This implies that graduates of every discipline from the universities need a sound working knowledge about sustainability”, through their education in the university campuses. I am happy that the mission statement of UITS aims to provide the education needed for sustainable economic growth of the country through a tripartite relationship between university, industry and research institution in the country and abroad. My greetings to all of you.
Technology is a non-linear tool
Science is linked to technology through application. Economy and environment are linked to technology. Technology is a non-linear tool that can bring about the most fundamental change in the ground rules of economic competitiveness. Science is linked to technology through applications. Technology is linked to economy and environment through the manufacturing process. Economy and environment linked technology to the society. The growing technological evolution in the last few decades, is the testimony of the fact of this non-linear trend. Technology consists of stages like research and development, technology transfer, technology absorption and production of products or systems with the desired performance, quality, and cost-effectiveness Hence technology empowers nations through science. What are the future challenges facing the humanity, which needs to be addressed by the combined efforts of various nations?
New Paradigm for Science and Technology: Many challenges are going to be thrown to the developing society. Scientists will also have challenges in bringing back a clean environment by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy from sun, wind and nuclear systems. Some of the future research tasks using Science and Technology are:
• Evolution of clean atmosphere by replacing fossil fuel by cost-effective renewable energy systems, leading to energy independence;
• Exploring the human body, particularly gene-characterization through the proteomics project for developing gene-based drugs;
• In the area of communication, a big revolution is setting in. High-bandwidth mobile wireless is in the offing. This could result in the mobile phone becoming a convergent system for multi-media applications for meeting the needs of communication in the office, home and on the move.
• In the area of agriculture, continuous research is needed to improve the productivity by 2 to 3 times in view of higher demand due to increasing population and reduction in availability of land, water and the reduction in the people willing to work in the farms. Technology has to play an important role in realizing this goal.
• A sustainable Rural Development through provision of urban amenities in rural areas (science and technology as the focus) will need innovation, research leading to products, systems and services in physical, electronic, knowledge and economic connectivities. Bangladesh vision 2021 talks about development of small town growth hubs via rural non-farm industries and services.
• Understanding precursors for phenomena like earth quake and tsunami which damage decades of development and put humanity into misery.
• Disaster Management and disaster prevention techniques, particularly for floods, heavy rains and cyclone.
These are some of the major areas of research and innovation, which need the joint research and development efforts of multiple nations based on their individual core competence. Certainly universities in various parts of the world can work on certain specific missions which are of common interest to many countries.
21st century University
During the last decade, I have met more than three million university students and faculty from more than 150 universities in India and 50 universities abroad. Based on this spirit, I wish to formulate a 21st university vision for university.
• The universities have to prepare citizens of the future with a global outlook who will be capable of serving their nation or anywhere.
• Science and technology and public policy are interrelated and mutual benefit and ushering in human kind’s development. This link has to be solidly built in the university education.
• Good teachers can be in any part of the world. The university has to bring in this resource through innovative content generation in virtual class rooms.
• Technological connectivities among universities have to be pursued vigorously using cost effective virtual class rooms.
• Cost effective continuing education possibilities are essential for citizens to be in tune with time.
• University education has to lead to sustainable development of the nations.
• With the world population increasing and resources reducing, a new way of thinking has to be developed for conserving and sharing the resources and looking for new research for creating abundant resources. This calls for a research spirit with nobility in thinking with global approach.
In summary, the 21st century university education is about developing enlightened citizenship for a knowledge society for peace and prosperity of nations and the world. 21st century University has to be the incubator of world knowledge powerhouse. Based on my interaction with many universities, I have observed certain dynamics. Whenever there is research intensity in the academic environment, it has enhanced the quality of teaching and also the university has got a great name in the nation and the world. Universities from developed world with their vast experience of a century have realized the significance of research as a foundation for the university. This is one dimension. The other dimension is that the intellectual capacity of the students will be continuously enriched. The third dimension is that the sharp gradient and accelerated development processes can give a platform for research for sustainable development. There is a large student community in the developing countries and there is an urge for higher education. Hence, we should see how we can empower them through university to university collaboration, student – faculty interaction, lab to lab collaboration, reaching out the world class quality teaching and research through a virtual reality environment with the excellent content generated.
Another aspect of education in the 21st century is that it has to be borderless.
Borderless university education
The future of innovation will demand a fast interface between science and engineering. Due to the convergence of information and communication technology, we saw the birth of a seamless area called ICT, which revolutionized the way by which we computed and communicated. Further the convergence of nano and biotechnology with ICT has now become a reality. It is estimated that in the life of a scientist or an engineer, he or she will come across and work in at least seven new areas which are born out of convergence of multiple science and technologies. Such convergence has made the border between areas completely porous.
In the last century, most nations understood that science and technology was the best vehicle for economic upliftment. However, S&T was primarily used to provide customized solutions to their local needs. Today, the problems faced by nations are no longer, a concern of them alone. Humanity is devoting more and more attention to climate change, energy, water, disease free world, economic turbulence and terrorism etc., which are all of concern to the entire world and the solutions for which are beyond any individual nations or group of nations.
If S&T has to provide upliftment of our humanity, if the research and development are in areas with porous borders among them, if the problems of the world know not of geographical borders, the education that becomes the foundation of all our science and technology, research and development, must of necessity has to become borderless. I would like to share an experience.
When I was traveling in an aircraft in the United States, I was told that many of its controls were software driven and most probably developed in India. When I presented my credit card, I was told that it was being processed in the backend server located in Mauritius. When I walked into IBM software development centre, Bangalore, I was fascinated to find that it truly presented a multicultural environment. A software developer from China working under the guidance of a project leader from Korea working with a software engineer from India, a hardware architect from the US, the communication expert from Germany all working together to solve a banking problem in Australia. When I see all of them working together like one family without any barrier of the culture from which they came or the language that they speak, I will not be surprised if India and Bangladesh becoming partners in the development of complex ICT products. I feel that the only hope for such borderless interaction to continue is to inculcate the spirit of borderlessness in our education also. Synthesis of knowledge from different fields of human endeavour has to be acquired to ensure sustainable welfare and progress of humanity. It means the unity of minds has to use the strong convergence of technologies and other faculties to bring a better future for humanity without any consideration of geographical or other borders.
Conclusion
Nations are respected, nations are known by how their citizens have been empowered with knowledge, prosperity and peace within the country and beyond. A prosperous nation, peaceful nation can be actuated only through vision for the nation. The vision for the nation gets evolved depending on the core competence and the current status of the nation. Only vision for the nation ignites the youth of the nation and the rest of the population. Irrespective of the political party which governs the nation, the vision for the nation forms the foundation for the growth of the nation in the fastest period. This is my experience.
Dear friends, I have seen three dreams which have taken shape as vision, mission and realization. Space programme of ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization), AGNI programme of DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organization) and PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) becoming the National Mission. Of course these three programmes succeeded in the midst of many challenges and problems. I have worked in all these three areas. I would like to convey, dear young friends, what I have learnt on leadership from these three programmes.
1. Leader must have a vision.
2. Leader must have a passion to transform the vision into action.
3. Leader must be able to travel into an unexplored path.
4. Leader must know how to manage a success and failure.
5. Leader must have courage to take decision.
6. Leader should have Nobility in management.
7. Every action of the leader should be transparent.
8. Leader must work with integrity and succeed with integrity.
For success in all the missions of a nation, it is essential to have creative leaders. Creative leadership means exercising the vision to change the traditional role from the commander to the coach, manager to mentor, from director to delegator and from one who demands respect to one who facilitates self-respect. I am sure, universities in Bangladesh, particularly UITS is in the mission of developing large number of creative leaders needed for Bangladesh. Higher the number of creative leaders in a nation, that will lead to higher level of happiness, prosperity and peace for all the citizens of the nation.
Once again, let me congratulate all the graduates of UITS on this important occasion. My best wishes to all the members of UITS for success in their mission of nurturing UITS into a unique university of Bangladesh.
May God Bless you.
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