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
5 comments:
Dear Dr Ramani thanks for most timely advice to csi members.
This looks like a very positive and bright vision for CSI. Indeed to reach on the levels of T4E, CSI will need to put in full throttle efforts and collaborate with institutions of eminence so that it can establish itself in the fields like Technology Enhanced Learning. We do have such expert members in CSI whose potential can be utilised to reach at that level and be on par with excellence. Best of luck CSI.
Great Institute CSI, let retain it. Move forward with speed to we will best country and Institute in world.
Dear Dr Ramsni, Thanks for your great suggestions. May be you will recall we had met while traveling and I was president iete. I have known csi when Dr pp gupta, Prof Sampath, Dr Sehagiri were active and later met Dr Datta, Dr Goyal , Brig Chaudhary and now all others after Dr Basu became president.
As regards IT and Cse I was president tcil bellsouth Ltd and guided development first 4gl OSS in 1989.later started tciltc for o,a,b,c courses and became MD icsi Ltd. Last few decades as Dir DG and VC in edn. My res is in brain-mind model and human rengineeing.
Problems in csi are, loose controls, noncompliance with laid down rules and vested interests. While last five elections I have watched myself , I spoke to some past presidents. All feel many pps and obs have contributed to current state.
As computer people we all know that no program can work without proper rules and compliance.
Your suggestions are good but csi needs people with good values and honest intentions. Unless vested interests are sacrificed situation may continue as in recent past.
Let us pray for best
Regards
Dr HSSharma
Very happy to hear from you, Dr HS Sharma. You are right. CSI needs people with good values and honest intentions.
My thanks to MD Agrawal, Jatin Ambasana, Vikash and the anonymous reader who roots for Sasikumar, for their comments!
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