2 Days national conference at Karpagam collage
P.Venkat Rangan, Vice-Chancellor, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, speaking at a conference on ‘Modelling, Simulation and Optimisation of Mechanical Systems’ at Karpagam College of Engineering in the city on Thursday. K.M. Mohana Sundaram (second from left), principal, and R. Vasanthakumar, Chairman and Managing Trustee, Karpagam Educational Institutions, are in the picture.“Creativity has made a silent exit from the educational system and so has the concept of entrepreneurship.” P. Venkat Rangan, Vice-Chancellor of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, said here on Thursday. Inaugurating a two-day national conference on “Modelling, Simulation and Optimisation of Mechanical Systems” at the Karpagam College of Engineering, he said creativity was an integral part of the educational system.The current educational system was focussing on how efficiently to solve an old problem rather than finding out creative ways to solve new problems, he lamented. “Human beings are endowed with creative intelligence, which they should put to good use,” he said.
Dr. Venkat Rangan underlined the importance of acting like problem solvers. Once a student completed his or her education, the employment field was no longer segmented into mechanical, chemical, electrical or information technology. All that mattered was whether he or she could solve problems, he said. And, problem solving was much easier when it was approached in multi-disciplinary teams. People of different capacities should work together as a team to solve common work problems. “A country like India needs to develop the culture of working together. We should not become a mediocre nation,” he said.He exhorted students to attend as many workshops and meetings and present papers and participate in debates. Such conferences acted as platforms, which gave birth to new ideas. Students should also get into the culture of research, he added.
For the Western universities, this part of the country offered various opportunities for finding solutions. The nature of the country’s problems was something countries in the West had not yet experienced. Indians should wake up to the need of finding out solutions for their problems and not wait for others to give them solutions, he said.
