Punjab Engineering College mulls over establishing centre for data science
The proposal has already been approved by the PEC senate
In a first, the Punjab Engineering College (PEC) is mulling to establish a centre of excellence in data science at the institution.
The proposal for the centre was discussed at the meeting of PEC’s board of governors (BoG) on Thursday; it has already been approved by the PEC senate.
A member of the board on the condition of anonymity said, “The proposal has been principally accepted by the board but a detailed proposal will be prepared again before a final call is taken.”
According to the proposal, the centre will be a central facility in the institute for state-of-the-art teaching, consultancy and research in the area of data science. Data science is one of the thrust areas identified by the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) under the scheme for transformational and advanced research in sciences (STARS) for promoting translational, India-centric research in sciences. The central facility proposed here will work in synchronisation with the MHRD’s key objectives as defined in STARS.
Rationale behind data centre
It has been outlined that PEC is located at the epicentre of various government and industrial establishments and the availability of data in these establishments was in abundance. This data can be utilised by the faculty, research scholars and students of PEC to provide solutions of region-specific problems, if the relevant facilities are available on campus.
Several faculty members of the computer science engineering department have shown interest in working at the centre.
BoG approves closure of MTech industrial design course
The members of the BoG on Thursday also approved the closure of the MTech in industrial design course. The PEC senate in September had recommended the same for the 2020-21 academic session.
Former vice-chancellor of Panjab University, professor Arun Kumar Grover, who is also a member of the BoG, said, “If it gets introduced in PEC, it would be better for the institution because the students would get better training. This is something which is needed by all the branches of engineering.”