IITs and IIMs’ Focus Should be on Innovation to Tackle Grassroots Problems: Sonam Wangchuk
Renowned educator Sonam Wangchuk highlighted the need for innovation by IITs and IIMs to deal with grassroots problems at an award ceremony. Various young innovators from across India were also felicitated at the award ceremony.
The educational institutes’ approach towards innovation these days is to focus more on technological inventions which doesn’t do much to solve the social and developmental issues of the nation, said Sonam Wangchuk, the Magsaysay awardee and educator.
Indian institutes are just copying western classroom modes without adapting them in a manner that is socially relevant for Indian society. While there is a need for drones and robots, solutions are also required for food crisis, water shortage and pollution. Premier institutes such as the IIMs and IITs need to bring about this change for offering tech-based solutions for developmental issues, according to Wangchuk.
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Wangchuk was speaking at the Aegis Graham Bell Awards wherein he called upon various entrepreneurs and innovators to resolve the basic challenges in the nation and offer a better quality of life to the common man. He also quoted Mahatma Gandhi and urged people to ‘live simply so that others may simply live”. Wangchuk is also the founder of the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL). SECMOL is an alternative schooling system which teaches students using a hands-on approach.
People should have an eco-friendly lifestyle and think of ways of giving back to society. Wangchuk also launched a crowdfunding campaign known as ‘I Live Simply’ movement and regarding that, he said that on the website of ilivesimply, users can pledge contribution in the form of lifestyle changes which will help the environment such as pledging to no use of single-use plastics.
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The awards were given to many young innovators from across India, One of the award winners was Fatehpur’s Radhesh Agrahari who was given an award for 'Innovation in Clean Tech’ category. Some of the other award winners who were felicitated are LivNSense Technologies for Innovation in Artificial Intelligence; Intelligence Node for Innovation in Data Science; Wijungle for Innovation in Cyber Security; Wipro for Innovation in Managed Services; Porter for Innovation in Digital Transformation; Idea Bridge for Innovative Enterprise Solution etc.