RIT, Sakharale
Second Graduation Ceremony
Tuesday, 18th November, 2014
A Speech by the Chief Guest of the function
Hon. Dr. G. D. Yadav
Director, Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai.
Hon. Dr. A.S. Bhoite, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Shivaji University,
Shri. Bhagatsinh Patil, Chairman, Board of Governors, RIT; Prin.
R.D. Sawant; Dr. Sushma Kulkarni; Members of the Board of
Management, Members of the Academic Council, the Deans of the
faculties, other authorities of this institute, invited guests,
graduating students, members of the media, ladies and the
gentleman.
At the very outset, let me congratulate the graduating class
this year for their spectacular performance and making their
parents proud. Dear students I am really thrilled, I am very happy
for all of you that you are graduating today and you are going into
a new world which is totally different from what you have been in
the classroom. So, what is this today's world? Today's world is a
new trinity, new Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh and that is change,
challenge and opportunity. The world is changing continuously.
The things are happening at such a rapid space that we cannot
predict tomorrow and why; because technology is changing day by
day. New knowledge thus according to Moore's Law is being
added. So, what is this new knowledge? The technology
institutions devote all their time to create engineering graduates. I
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am going to tell you the definition of 'engineer'. Engineer is the
word which comes from 'ingenium' which is a Greek word and
ingenium was a battering rams used by Greeks in fortification of
their force or a defense mechanism. And they used to throw it and
it will come back. And they will defend against invading enemy.
How the world 'ingenium' corner from that idea and perhaps you
know that the many of the European languages are in link with our
languages and the Sanskrit is one of them which is the IndoEuropean or the Indo-Iranian language. Ingenium means to create,
in Sanskrit it is 'Jan', 'Janani' that means you are creating
something new.
The engineer has to create new. The word which was not
there hundred years ago has been created today by the
engineering brain and the first thing what we did in this world - all
civilization is advanced because of engineering knowledge,
science comes later. First we see that there is a wheel, then we
put combined axel to that then we put more wheels, then we put
combined axel and then we make them grow and we put one
wheel into another, we said ok let us transfer this mechanical
energy into kinetic energy and what not and we go on doing the
engineering things. So an engineer has to create something new.
So what do you create in today's world? And as I mentioned to you
there are so many challenges before us. India as a nation faces lot
of challenges, but what about the globe, what challenges the globe
is facing? And the first and foremost is, you know economy of the
world is going through a crisis. So sustaining the economy is an
engineering challenge. Engineering graduates can do these
wonders.
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What is the next challenge which we will face during this
century- making more from less. The tillable land is going down
day by day. So what it means, we do not have much of agricultural
land and our population is growing. We are 1.26 billion people.
From where we will give them food? Unless we innovate, so
innovation is the gain so whether we can innovate genetically
modified food, people do not like it. But if the tillable land is going
down that means per hector I must produce more grain more food
and that has to be quality food, it is not any garbage I have to
produce. So that is a challenge. It is an engineering challenge.
Then very big plants and miniature plants, you build super
capacity plants so that the society's needs are fulfilled but at the
same time you will make small, tiny models which can be used by
the house wife in the kitchen. Do not be surprised if tomorrow's
woman has a factory in a purse like today's kids have mobile
phones in their pockets. Did we imagine it fifty years ago? Nobody
imagined that we will have a mobile phone which is more powerful
than those called powerful machines which were used in nineteen
seventies and nineteen eighties and now we have them in our
pocket and everybody, we are innovative. So it is very important
thing that the tomorrow’s world will be very very different.
Thirty-Three percentage of our food is eaten by pests,
rodents and what not. So we have to have new types of pesticides,
new hyper o fertilizers to grow this food, these cereals and what
not. That is another interesting aspect.
Fusion, can we create a fusion reactor here so that our
energy problems will be solved forever. We have been also talking
about Swacha Bharat, Clean India Mission. What does it mean?
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We find plastic everywhere around us. Are we collecting it? Are we
separate it? Can we make use of this plastic? which is
polyethalylene bag to generate energy. I think that we can
generate energy for next twenty-five years believe me. Next
twenty-five years if we will collect it and generate energy out of it, I
can do many many things. I can do fischer tropsch synthesis, I can
build plants, I can do many many things. There is garbage we can
generate energy out of it. So what I am trying to tell you that we
have to take challenges.
Do not underestimate because you are in a rural area. RIT
may be in rural are but you must have supper brains. Right. I must
thank and I must appreciate the vision shown by this Kasegaon
Education
Society
which
was
established
by
Late
Shri.
Rajarambapu Patil in 1945. You know after independence until
1970s, may be early 80s only few leaders from Maharashtra were
well-known - Rajarambapu Patil, Balasaheb Desai, Yashwantrao
Chavan, Vasantdada Patil you name it. Rajarambapu Patil, I never
met him but I have heard his name in my childhood. I must
compliment the management of institute here, institute of
technology and that also at a post-graduate level. So postgraduate discipline is very important because that is where you
create new knowledge. What you should do, and my piece of
advise to you is that couple these programs with industries. Have
sandwich courses that you alternate because now you are
autonomous. You send your graduates to industry, have industrial
collaborations, sign MoUs with them. You have many of them, you
can enlarge that list. You don't have to just limit yourself to the
number of people of the industries you have. And ensure that
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students go to industry, learn and come back. They can be
teachers in the class.
Last month I was in Singapore and participating in higher
education programs, and we were discussing the methods of
imparting education to students. And new it is retro, reverse. How
do you do that? That is you give the lessons to the students but
you give the syllabus to them, ask them this is the syllabus, you
study the lesson and come back in the class and you discuss and
teacher sit there and they go on debating and the teacher only
corrects them. Now, what is happening? The student is enjoying
both the worlds. He is playing with his mobile phone and the
teacher is teaching in the class. Meanwhile he is exchanging SMS.
Though he doesn't have the interest, we have to create interest in
the minds of these students because they are very intelligent.
Today's kids are very very intelligent. If you look at 1984,
you have heard of Bill Gates, you know the grate Microsoft Owner.
What did he say? He said in 1984, we do not need more than 64
KB memory RAM for a computer. Today, when a young kid is born
yesterday and you go to the hospital and you want to give a tab to
the kid you gave at least 1 MB. Because of 64 KB the kid doesn't
touch, and start crying. So the memory has increased. The
technology has taken us to a next level, next pedestal and
therefore it is important that we keep pace with technology.
Another important challenge is managing the nitrogen cycle.
How do you manage the nitrogen cycle? That is fixing nitrogen
from atmosphere into the soil has been one of the greatest
pastime for scientists and engineers. Bacteria have been doing it
but we have to do it through technology. Managing the carbon
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cycle - we talk about carbon dioxide, pollution, climate change and
all those things but managing the carbon cycle is another
technological challenge.
Extending life is a challenge. Man has desire to live life
more. And why does he do that? Because according to me we
have been in scientific world. We have been advanced to a level
where we can create biomaterials, biocompatible materials so that
we can replace many things in our human body. Already we have
started replacing.
So what is going to happen in the year 2100. World will have
more older people, the older you become more problem will be like
depression, alzheimer, parkinson, cancer, diabetes all these
deadly diseases we have to combat and technology will advance
to that level where we will be doing that. So what is going to
happen then? Slowly I replace everything from a human body.
There is nothing impossible. In the year 1900, Lord Thomson
(Kelvin) said it is impossible to fly an object which is 1000 times
heavier than air. But in eight years after that Wright Brothers
invented aircraft. Because they did not know Kelvin was telling
something scientific, but their engineering brain was so grate that
they said ok we can fly. So today's kids have that ability.
You do not imagine, believe me. Facts are stranger than
fiction. We never believe that we would have mobile phones and
we will talk to our children sitting abroad. We don’t know what will
happen after ten years from know. Because we can not imagine
who is going to contribute to new science, new technology, new
engineering, and this is where the importance of engineering
education comes into existence. And I am very glad that you have
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started a magazine 'JEET' (Journal of Engineering Education and
Transformation) a very nice name, acronym also. Dr. Kulkarni, I
must compliment you and your management for undertaking this
fantastic new journey, new path and I am sure some of your
students who are doing research will contribute to it. And I must
also tell you, that you should never lose hopes. You will have the
worst moments in your life. You may be depressed but don't get
depressed.
There is always a ray of hope. There is tomorrow. There is a
better tomorrow. Never disrespects your parents. What I am today
is only because of my parents. Where you get educated, in rural or
urban area doesn't matter. You can also become big, you can also
have grate aspirations, you can also take on the world, you can do
that. Nobody is less than anybody else. Be disciplined in your life.
Work hard. Everybody is intelligent but it is the efforts in which you
lag. So do not give up and there is another method by which you
can interact, communicate with one another in whatever the
language you want to improve upon. Be cultured. Engineer without
culture, ethos and value systems is no good engineer. Remain
truthful. Be a person of integrity and nobody can stop you.
I have been dealing with all sorts of people; all sorts of
students, coming from rural areas, urban areas, highly rich people,
and people from impoverish background. I tell them do not give up.
You are an intelligent kid, only thing you don't realize that you are
getting intimidated by the urban folks. They are not better than
you. Only raise your level of confidence. Study hard. Continuous
education is one of the most important things in engineering. You
have to study every day, practically everyday. You know perhaps
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in the electronics everyday new things are coming. Computer
science - new programs are coming. You can not remain isolated
from the world. So you have to make use of technology.
Ladies and gentleman, I thing my time is up and I must thank
your management for inviting me and giving me this great
opportunity to interact with you and addressing you. I have been
thoroughly enjoying this morning. Those who are passing out
remain in touch with your teachers, with your institute, become
members of alumni association. You have sponsored some of
these models, sponsor more, sponsor some poor students, they
will love you. All state holders must participate in institution
building. Remember that your education has not completed here
but it starts from today.
Thank you.
*****
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