Prof. Anil Dattatraya Sahasrabudhe is the new AICTE chairman: Prof. Anil Dattatraya Sahasrabudhe, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati has taken over the charge as the Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). Prof. Sahasrabudhe, an alumnus of BVB College of Engineering and Technology, Hubli is a Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He served as Lecturer and Assistant Professor at NERIST, Itanagar before joining IIT Guwahati as Associate Professor in 1995 and has been serving as Professor since 1999. He is also Chairman, Basic Scientific Research (BSR), Empowered Committee of UGC.
Peerless Funds unveils Beti Shiksha Abhiyaan to support education of girls: Peerless Funds Management Co Limited (PFMCL), Investment Manager to Peerless Mutual Fund, on July 8 announced Beti Shiksha Abhiyaan – a first of its kind corporate initiative to empower the daughters of the country. The Company will offer up to an additional 10 basis points commission to distributors having a daughter in the family to support their education. PFMCL currently has distributors in more than 50 locations across the country and expects to reach more than 3,000 families through this initiative. The company also launched a website www.betishiksha.com, a dedicated website to garner support and increase awareness
Rajiv Shastri, MD & CEO, PFMCL said, “Encouraging the education and nurture of our daughters is a national imperative and we believe that it is important to accompany our commitment to this cause with meaningful action by rewarding those who are primarily responsible for the nurture and education of our daughters; the parents. Offering up to 10 bps additional commission is just a small step in a long and fruitful journey. We will continue to build upon the initiative through various avenues..”
30 South Delhi Municipal Headmasters, SMCs to train: The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has partnered with India School Leadership Institute (ISLI), promoted by Centre Square Foundation, a venture philanthropy fund and policy think tank, for training 30 of its headmasters under the later’s City Fellowship programme from 2015-16. Talking about this initiative, Ashish Sood, Chairman- Education Committee, SDMC said, “Improving quality of education and learning outcomes of students is a big priority for the South Delhi Municipal Corporation. We have seen that in schools, headmasters are often restricted to being administrative heads. By providing them the right training and skills, we want to empower them to assume larger leadership roles. ” Sameer Sampat, Executive Director, ISLI said, “Our goal is to develop headmasters who drive high-performing schools that commit to academic achievement and character development of children from underserved communities.” SDMC also launched a community leadership programme in partnership with Saajha for school management committees in these schools. Saajha will support SDMC to: facilitate SMC creation and organise workshops for school inspectors and I dentify supportive members from nearby residential areas and facilitate community engagement programmes.
TCS’s Annual goIT Program Expands to 20 U.S. States: Tata Consultancy Services has announced the expansion of its goIT student technology awareness program to 20 U.S states, reaching cities such as Phoenix, AZ; Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Newark, NJ; Bloomington, IL; San Antonio, TX; Denver, CO; Jacksonville, FL; Charlotte, NC and Edison, NJ. Launched in Cincinnati, OH, in 2009, goIT is TCS’ signature education program in North America, through which employees teach design processes, computer programming and mentor youth to increase career awareness in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematic (STEM) fields. This year, goIT will reach students, in 27 cities across the U.S. and Toronto, Canada; especially those from underrepresented groups, minorities and girls. By 2018, there will be eight million STEM jobs in the U.S., with 80 percent of the fastest growing U.S. occupations requiring STEM skills. “I believe a career in STEM represents the new American dream; providing wage, gender and social equity, along with an opportunity for upward mobility and economic prosperity. Therefore equipping our youth with technology skills and career readiness improves our competitiveness as a nation,” commented Surya Kant, President of North America, U.K. and Europe,Tata Consultancy Services.
Intel’s ‘Digital India Week’ Challenge reached over 5 lakh children: During the ‘Digital India Week’ (from July 1), Intel launched the Digital Wellness Online Challenge, an online quiz aimed at sensitizing and creating a culture of digital wellness amongst children from classes 6 to 12 by promoting awareness on the benefits as well as the potential threats of Internet-based interactions and familiarizing students with different types of cyber threats, consequences and protective measures, in collaboration with National e-Governance Division* (NeGD) .
Debjani Ghosh, Vice President, Sales and Marketing Group and Managing Director, Intel South Asia said, “With the strong support we received from NeGD and DeitY (Department of Electronics and Information Technology), we were able to reach over 5 lakh children in just a week through this Challenge.” In line with its commitment to the Digital India vision, Intel had recently announced the Intel and DST “Innovate for Digital India Challenge”, which focuses on the creation of products to increase technology adoption in India that will eventually result in the creation of a local technology ecosystem.
WizIQ’s Virtual Classroom awarded: WizIQ, one of the world’s largest cloud based education platforms, added another feather to its growing cap of accolades at the South Asia Education Summit 2015. WizIQ was recognized for its valuable contribution in the eLearning sector in the “Virtual Classroom Provider” category at an award ceremony held on July 9, 2015 in New Delhi. The annual awards, held to felicitate education innovations in South Asian countries of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka, also saw keynote speakers from across various industry verticals attend the event. The award was handed over to WizIQ’s Chief Revenue Officer Maneesh Sharma and WizIQ’s Director, Solutions Specialist, Kalyan Sarkar by Prof. Supten Sarbadhikari, Project Director, CNI of the National Health Portal Gov of India and Rajendra Pratap Gupta, Co-chair at Innovation Working Group – Asia.
Established in 2007 and headquartered in Chandigarh, WizIQ is a cloud-based platform that enables learning service providers and enterprises to build their own online academy.
ELS India ties up with CADD Center for expansion: ELS International Education Pathways Private Limited (ELS India), last month entered into a strategic partnership agreement with CADD Centre India Private Ltd (CADD India) in Chennai to expand offering of unbiased Counseling & Admissions services to students pursuing higher studies in foreign Universities. This memorandum would enable more than 500 CADD centers across 240 major districts spread throughout India to extend “International Higher Educational Counseling & Admissions Services”, fully supported by ELS. ELS promote education excellence and provide world-class international counseling and admission services to the aspiring students seeking opportunities overseas.
DELL KICKSTARTS DELL CHAMPS: Dell, the in June 24 announced the “Dell Champs 2015” School Program, a 20 city student-outreach program woven around the theme, ‘Learning Meets Doing’. The “Dell Champs 2015” program features an interactive technology based quiz contest that provides a unique platform for parents to participate with their child and be a partner in their success. The teams comprising of a parent and child studying in class 5th – 7th standard will compete for the title of “Dell Champs” 2015. This grand quiz contest will bring forth the geniuses of tomorrow in 400 schools across 20 Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities throughout India and make the winning team a Dell Champ. The 20 cities include Meerut, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Indore, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Cochin, Coimbatore, Madurai, Mangalore, Ahmedabad, Raipur, Jaipur, Nagpur, Pune, Surat, Bhubaneswar, Jamshedpur, Vijayawada and Vishakhapatnam and will be covered over a period of 3 months.
The competition will be conducted in three stages, with the first being the ‘School level’, where interested teams will have an audio visual written preliminary round out of which 6 teams will be chosen and a Final On-stage Round from which 2 teams will be chosen to represent the school in the City Finals. The second round will have 40 teams from the 20 schools competing in the ‘City level’ contest, and the top 20 City level finalists will complete in an online quiz in the ‘National level’. The National level quiz will be conducted on the Dell Champs microsite. The winning team will receive a Dell All-in-One PC.
Gdrive to train GATE aspirants: GATEFORUM, a company offering preparatory services for Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) has announced its nationwide launch of Gdrive to initiate students preparing for GATE exams into adopting technology and give them a new means of learning. Gdrive from GATEFORUM will ease out the burden of hunting for quality content for preparation of the GATE exams.
Abhijit Chaudhari, Director, GATEFORUM said, “Most institutes and reputed PSUs in India require GATE score for admission to their ME and M.Tech programs. With such a huge demand for the GATE examination, it is imperative that aspirants are well trained to meet the examination criteria. Gdrive provides over 300 hours of video lectures tailed to the requirement of students, which would be regularly updated. Gdrive will lead Gate aspirants towards smart way of learning and training. A student can experience high quality GATE training without needing Internet, making Gdrive even more effective for students who stay in the smaller cities and towns”. Gdrive is part of GATEFORUM’s GO GREEN initiative, where we encourage students to think beyond physical books.
Intellipaat to raise funds worth $3-5mn from investors: Intellipaat, the market leader that provides online training to professionals and graduates, is in talks to raise Series-A funding of $3-5mn that translates to 19-32 crore in Indian currency, from investors. The finances will be utilized to ramp up the operations of one of the leading IT training providers of the country.
The funding will enable Intellipaat for its global expansion plans along with increasing course catalogue from +125 to 500 e-learning courses, add more clients to its network and infuse the latest technology to stay ahead in the market. Intellipaat will also target next level expansion from the funding it clinches from the investors.
HIMCOM awarded: Delhi’s media education institute Heritage Institute of management and Communication (HIMCOM) has been awarded for its efforts in media education sector at Annual Corporate Summit cum Awards 2015 organized by All India Technical and Management Council to be held at FICCI New Delhi. Syed Masood, Managing Director of HIMCOM has taken the award from Dr. Mahesh Sharma, union Minister of Tourism and Culture. The institute has its own shooting floor, studio and ultramodern computer laboratory, digital cameras, printing machine, and other equipment required in a media set-up, and is providing education and training in journalism and mass Communication.
