'Bio-inspired System Science: Synergy among nature, science & society' a talk by Prem Kumar Kalra at Seminar Room, Library Building, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML), Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 3pm on 6th March 2014

Time : 3:00 pm

Entry : Free (Seating on First-Come First-Served basis)

Place : Seminar Room, Library Building, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML), Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg, New Delhi - 110011
Venue Info :  Events | About | Map | Nearest Metro Station - 'Race Course(Yellow Line)'

Event Description : Nehru Memorial Museum and Library cordially invites you to a Public Lecture (in the ‘Science, Society and Nature’ series) on ‘Bio-inspired System Science: Synergy among nature, science and society’ by Prof. Prem Kumar Kalra, Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Agra.

Abstract:
Today’s education system has become over-stable in that, despite changing times and needs, it is becoming increasingly difficult to bring in innovation, creativity and excellence. Challenges that universities around the globe face are, broadly, affordability, student employability, student empowerment and developing an entrepreneurial mind set in students. There is also a deficiency in developing curricula that enable students to perform up to their potential. Course content is largely static in nature, and practically no significant inter-disciplinary programmes exist at undergraduate level. Any attempt to innovate in education invariably meets with a lot of resistance; (on the names of fundamentals are must to teach). With online content increasingly popular and accessible, a compelling debate arises on the balance to be created between courses that are to be taught and those that can be self-learnt. Most educational institutes mention in their vision statements their mission to produce well-rounded students. But what exactly does this mean? Additionally, there are number of questions that need to be asked about the overall education system:
Do we need to re-define the purpose of education?
Do we need a rigorous reinvention of education models?
Do we need to continue with a compartmentalized model of education?
How should education create nation builders and community builders?
Is the purpose of education to produce employable students or is it to develop thinking human beings?   
What are the ways and means to engage students to foster higher order of thinking?
Should education empower students to solve local problems or to get ranked?
Should education contribute to only economical development or development in a larger, broader sense?
The word holistic has expanded beyond synergy of Humanities, Sciences and Engineering towards an integration of skill sets acquiring which enables one to appreciate the role of abstract concepts of consciousness, music and emotions. Scientific inquiry has been extended to areas like cognition and beyond.  One example to address the above questions is to develop interdisciplinary education at undergraduate level e.g. system science, bio-inspired system science, and art, culture and heritage.  Such programmes shall bring together humanities, social science, science, engineering and technology under one umbrella to maximize creativity and innovation. Bio-inspired system science is a unique initiative with the broad objective to design novel, adaptive, and sustainable technological solutions inspired by nature, and biological systems for society. Understanding biological systems will help an engineer design adaptive intelligent systems for the ever changing environment. An interdisciplinary approach promotes holistic development of innovative technological solutions. In fact it will be interesting to innovate in one and all fields of life rather than only in technology e.g., digital humanities and synergy of language and technology offer such opportunities. Further, elitism in vocational skill development would also be the outcome arising out of such seamless integration. This will create knowledge economy and IPR regime which may be unique to India only.

Speaker:
Prof. Kalra did his M.Tech. from IIT Kanpur and then Ph.D. from University of Manitoba, Canada. His field of specialization is Electrical Engineering (Neural Networks, Fuzzy Logic and its Applications).   Prof. Kalra has been deeply involved in the National Mission of Education through ICT (NMEICT) of the Ministry of HRD, Government of India since its conceptualization stage and continues his involvement today as the Mission coordinator. Prof. Kalra has made significant contributions in the field of Neural Networks (NN). He has developed neuron models to significantly reduce training/learning time as well data requirement for mapping of function and prediction.  His publications illustrate advancement of both theory and applications in the area of NN, power systems, transportation, rapid-prototyping, aerodynamics and sensors.   Prof. Kalra has contributed to the electricity sector for decades.  Among other projects in this sector, he has developed a pricing model for UPSERC and cost-to-serve and multiyear-tariff structure for BESCOM. Successful completion of Prototype development for Land Records and testing of the E-Governance application for the state of Chhattisgarh demonstrate his multidisciplinary expertise to execute large real life projects. Prof. Prem Kalra is presently Director, Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Agra.

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