Media Release
Mangaluru, Aug 31: National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK), Surathkal, here, with immense pleasure shared a report on the Diamond Jubilee Year (2019-20) celebrations and best practices adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was a nostalgic moment to celebrate the 60th Foundation Day of the National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK) on August 6, 2019, ushering in the beginning of the diamond jubilee year (2019-2020).
The year was celebrated in grand style with enthusiastic participation from all the stakeholders, namely, faculty, staff, students, alumni, associated partners and members of the Board of Governors. The diamond jubilee year celebrations showcased more than 50 events including conferences, symposia, training programmes, seminars covering a wide spectrum of technical topics and also co-curricular, sports, cultural and technical fests.
M Venkaiah Naidu, the vice-president of India, graced the Diamond Jubilee Year Convocation (17th annual convocation) on November 2, 2019, as the chief guest and delivered a truly inspiring convocation address. It was indeed a memorable moment in the history of the institute.
Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ the minister of Education, the Government of India inaugurated the Central Research Facility (CRF) at NITK on February 25. The CRF is a state of the art unique facility established in the country with a total financial outlay of Rs 80 crore, financed by the Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA). It is a matter of great pride that NITK was chosen by HEFA for creating CRF among all 31 NITs. CRF with its modern and sophisticated equipment/instruments will be instrumental in carrying out cutting-edge research, innovation in a wide range of technological and scientific areas. CRF is gearing towards becoming fully operational. It will promote multidisciplinary research addressing important issues related to industry, society, institutions and serve as a regional research hub.
The MoE lauded the establishment of the CRF pointed out that the proposed New Education Policy (NEP) is designed to strengthen the nation and is based on India’s ethics and value system. It aims at making life meaningful for every citizen and will establish India as the ‘Vishwaguru’. The faculty/staff, students and management of NITK are indeed indebted to the MoE for his constant support and encouragement in all their endeavours. Whether it is with regard to financial support for the diamond jubilee celebrations or his words of encouragement to achievements of the faculty/students. NITK aims to achieve the status of a global institution through high visibility under the visionary approach and valuable guidance of the MoE.
The MoE Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, inaugurated the CRF facility. Director, Professor K Umamaheshwar Rao, Professor K Balaveera Reddy, BoG chairperson were present.
NITK encourages interdisciplinary research through networking with other higher institutes of learning, industries and R&D laboratories. The culture of research leads to several active MoUs with external agencies/institutions from India and abroad which are yielding significant benefits through joint projects and publications for faculty and internships/placements for students. During the diamond jubilee year (2019-20) alone, 9 such new MoUs were signed. The establishment of the Regional Academic Centre for Space (RAC-S) at NITK with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is a significant milestone in this regard. This centre will provide a platform to carry out advanced R&D activities in the area of Space Technology Applications jointly by NITK faculty/students and scientists of ISRO. The centre will act as a
facilitator for the promotion of space technology activities, awareness creation, capacity building, and R & D activities of ISRO in the states located in the southern region. It is worthwhile to mention that several high value funded research projects are currently being executed with support from agencies/organizations such as SERB, CSIR, DST, ISRO, BARC/BRNS, TIFACORE, MCIT, MOES, DRDO, NSF, DHI, DELL, Intel and IBM. NITK is fully prepared to implement the New Education Policy (NEP) and establish itself as a research institution of repute.
The institution embraced the initiative of establishing a clean and green campus during the diamond jubilee year. The institution has designed and developed a table-top plastic and paper recycling unit that attracted the attention of the MoE. One MW rooftop solar plant was installed with funding from MoE and the ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE). The power grid was installed across 11 academic buildings. Newly built apartment blocks are provided with green building features such as energy-efficient design, LED-based energy-efficient luminaries, 75 percent of built-up area lit with natural daylight and sewage treatment plants. As part of the water conservation drive, a large rainwater harvesting facility with a storage pond of 1 lac litres capacity and six open wells are being established in the campus with the financial support from alumni and industries.
NITK alumni who have achieved great success and occupy coveted positions came forward and generously supported the institution. Given the importance attached to the alumni, it was the collective desire of Team-NITK to host five alumni meets during the diamond jubilee year to honour alumni achievers grouped into every decade of graduation namely, 1965-79, 1980-89, 1990-99, 2000-09 and 2010-19. The first alumni meet was organised on August 6, 2019, the 60th Foundation Day, inviting alumni who graduated between 1965 and 1979 and 31 awards were conferred. Due to the pandemic situation, the remaining four alumni meets were clubbed together and a single meet was held on August 9 through a web meeting platform. On this momentous occasion, the 'Distinguished Alumnus / Alumna' Awards were conferred on 38 alumni who graduated between 1980 and 2019.
Placements during the year were also extremely good with over 267 companies, including seven PSUs and ISRO and 65 new companies providing jobs and internships to the students. As a result, more than 90% of the UG students were placed with the average package being Rs 10.8 lac/annum and the highest package of Rs 51.5 lac/annum.
The placement percentage for PG students was also higher this year at 57%. Although, the recruitment process was extended up to mid-August due to COVID pandemic, sustained efforts were made to ensure a smooth online recruitment process.
The faculty, staff and students actively participated in all social activities/initiatives of MoE including Swatch Bharath Pakwada, Fit India Movement, Swatchhata Hi Seva, Woman Empowerment, Sadbhavana Diwas, International Day of Yoga, Ek Bharath Shreshth Bharath, anti-corruption pledge, induction programme for the first-year students, Yoga camps, Mathrubhasha Diwas and Rashtriya Ekta Diwas. NITK has hosted inter-NIT sports tournaments and brought laurels by winning in many competitions.
It was when such a joyous celebratory mood was prevailing at NITK, that the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in March. The ensuing lockdowns certainly dampened the spirits and posed a challenge for the celebrations, but more importantly, academic and research activities were severely affected since the students had to vacate the campus. The pandemic brought the entire country to a grinding halt and almost all the activities were put on hold. But as the adage goes, ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’! It is during times of crisis that true leaders exhibit their talents as was demonstrated by the collective leadership under the guidance of Professor K Balaveera Reddy chairperson of the Board of Governors. Leadership is all about managing the academic activities of the institute. During the turbulent pandemic period, his astute experience and strategic skills came to the forefront in resolving the situation. NITK fraternity which is known for its intellectual capacity demonstrated innovative solutions to mitigate the challenges posed by the pandemic.
As the first step in this direction it was decided to use IT tools to move academic activities to the online mode. Since April, academics online has become a new norm at NITK. The institution has indigenously developed an on-line lecture delivery MIS platform called Integrated Resources and Information Sharing System (IRIS) for use by the students and faculty through the support of MoE. IRIS (https://iris.nitk.ac.in/) learning management system has integrated Moodle to handle academic activities such as course material preparation and audio/video recording and creation of assignments/quizzes using Big-Blue-Button. Microsoft teams are integrated into IRIS for online course delivery and real-time student interactions. All classes since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic are being handled through the IRIS platform which is catering to more than 6000 students across India and outside. Students, faculty can access and update all the course material, conduct exams and announce grades entirely in an online mode through a secure interface from anywhere in the world. Faculty and students are also regularly using the NPTEL/SWAYAM online courses as supplementary learning material.
It is worth mentioning here that using the online mode, final examinations and viva-voce for UG/PG projects were conducted in the even semester and it was ensured that the students of the 2019-20 batch graduated without any delay. In the current semester, the entire theory and laboratory courses are being handled in online mode and the students have greatly appreciated the efforts made by the faculty in offering hassle-free learning experience. Also, classes for the current odd semester were initiated as per the original academic calendar without any disruption. IRIS platform is also extending support to a variety of activities related to general administration. The Central Library with state-of-the-art e-library has secured on-line remote access to journals and other e-resources through their new website:
https://website-lib.nitk.ac.in extended support towards uninterrupted research.
As part of their commitment to social responsibility, NITK has made significant contributions in the form of designing and fabricating 3D printed ventilator components, face mask with N95 filters, face Shields, hand sanitizers and apps to help safe travel of migrant workers to mitigate hardship during COVID-19. The task of designing and fabrication of 10,000 face shields for use by health care workers of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts was achieved by using 3-D printing technology.
Development of hand sanitizers based on WHO norms and its distribution among the front-line workers fighting against COVID-19 was taken up. A 'Zero-Cov’ box for surface disinfection of groceries and other personal items was designed and developed.
NITK employees and alumni joined hands to distribute grocery kits to more than 1500 families of daily wage workers and the needy people in and around Surathkal, who suffered job losses during the lockdown period. ‘Saral’ app was developed by Chitransh Lodha’, a final year BTech (Electrical Engg)student of NITK Surathkal in collaboration with the Bokaro district administration. This app is extremely useful for locating migrant workers stranded in other cities, classifying their professions, identifying their arrival points and consequent surveillance. An interactive app employing models based on deep learning, specifically Recursive Neural Network (RNN) has been developed by the department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE). It takes true data from all the countries that have seen the pandemic for more than 90 days (more than 160 as of now) and use this as the base for making predictions about the spread of the pandemic. The algorithm is able to give predictions looking ahead for twenty days as of now. This work is partially funded by Google Cloud COVID-19 credits. They have awarded US $10000 cloud credits for this work. Faculty and students of NITK are continuing their sustained efforts to further provide support to the government and society at large in facing the challenges posed by the pandemic.
A sense of happiness and encouragement prevailed, when MHRD announced that NITK Surathkal was ranked 13 in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) ranking for the year 2020 under the engineering category. This result was particularly satisfying considering that the institute had moved up by eight places from the rank of 21 during the previous year. It was clear that the hard work and dedication of the faculty, administration, staff, students and alumni was paying rich dividends in carving a niche for NITK amongst the top technological institutions of the country. MHRD support and guidance, astute leadership of the chairperson and members of the Board of Governors has been major factors contributing to the improved ranking of NITK.
The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us how to convert challenges into opportunities in turbulent times. The entire Team-NITK is confident, stands firm in its resolve to further enhance the visibility and reputation of the institute towards higher levels of excellence.