Can’t afford to miss 4th industrial revolution : Venkaiah Naidu

Bengaluru Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday called upon the higher education institutions and universities to review and align their existing courses to the emerging global trends or start new courses in tune with the national needs

Bengaluru

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Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday called upon the higher education institutions and universities to review and align their existing courses to the emerging global trends or start new courses in tune with the national needs.

Naidu was speaking at the sixth convocation of PES University in Bengaluru on Monday.

“Today, the 4th industrial revolution is knocking at our door and it is driven by the knowledge economy and cutting-edge technological innovations. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity and our higher educational institutions must equip our youth with 21st-century skills,” he said.

He referred to emerging areas such as 5G technologies, artificial intelligence, robotics and biotechnology.

“I would urge our private institutions and universities to make the best use of this opportunity and to work towards making India self-reliant and technologically advanced in the space sector,” Naidu said, according to a statement by the Press Information Bureau on Monday.

He said that India, with its traditional strengths in innovation, IT and frugal engineering, has the potential of becoming a global drone hub.

“Indian authors can better contextualize the engineering course content with regard to Indian socio-economic conditions,” he said

He also called for more research on issues of priority like climate change.

“We frequently read news reports about increasing pollution in Indian cities; I would urge our educational institutions to come up with technological solutions to such pressing problems faced by society, especially in agriculture,” he said.