The Computer Society of India’s election
for key committees at the national level is to be held soon. I am confident that
members will do their best to ensure good elections and hand over the society
to responsible professionals.
We need to look beyond the
election. What should be our priorities? There will be many answers to this
question. CSI consists of many types of members such as professionals in
business, industry and R & D, entrepreneurs, students, and academics. There
would be activities for each group, depending upon the leadership each group
elects to the key committees.
Let me offer my own humble
thoughts. I would emphasise lifelong learning for members, good quality
publications, focus on online courses & educational technology. There
should be special activities for student and teacher members. I think that all these activities have a
tremendous potential. Nation-wide R & D activities in technology for
education have been mostly government funded so far. These R & D activities
have given India a major lead.
Industry and business have their
own importance. While Govt funding goes to institutions with an impressive
past, industry and business seek out activities that have a great future.
Educational Technology companies and start-ups in India have done well, though
they are now facing some problems. Our vision should be to have a national
effort in which all sectors cooperate to earn India a reputation around the
world for technology-based education of high quality. We ought to have a
million or more Indians working to export services worth, say, 20 billion dollars
a year. This would require that we should be creating and serving a domestic
market which is larger. While export earnings and job creation matter, the
service angle matters a lot more. No export, and no domestic sale, would be
more valuable to the buyer than a high-quality educational service. Beneficiaries would remember their gains
life-long, creating us a lot of goodwill.
IEEE Computer Society was running an
annual series of conferences on Technology for Education (T4E) till a couple of
years ago, when the Covid pandemic caused a break. This effort was spearheaded
by the IITs and a few other institutions of higher education such as the Amrita
and Goa Universities. CSI should cooperate with like-minded groups like these whenever
possible. We have a great strength – our Chapters are everywhere. We can have a
few regional conferences as well as an international conference every year. We
can even run a good quality journal/magazine on technology enhanced learning. However,
sister societies and other like-minded bodies have their strengths too. We
should be adding to each other’s strength.
A veteran of online education and
educational technology is standing for election as a Division Chair: Dr M. Sasikumar.
That gives me hope. He and his
colleagues nation-wide can do a lot for CSI in this area.
Srinivasan Ramani
