Education Technology | Innovations and Insights - Edinbox

In a recent IIT Madras panel discussion, five IIT directors warned against the growing "herd mentality" among students and parents who are fixated on Computer Science Engineering (CSE). They highlighted that India urgently needs talent in other areas to stimulate growth and innovation.

It is driven by high-end compensation for IT professionals, opined Shreepad Karmalkar of IITBhubaneswar: "This herd mentality has to be eliminated." He said students take decisions based on seeming economics, rather than national or social needs.

But that focus underinvests and undigitizes strategic areas—semiconductors, batteries, materials, chemicals and sustainability.

CALL FOR A BROADER ENGINEERING VISION

IIT Madras Director V Kamakoti stated, "The country requires toppers in civil services. Then only technology can reach the masses and heal problems." He stressed that India's technological progress will require balanced governance in the administration, and not just programming.

KNSatyanarayana (IITTirupati) believed there is a "huge vacuum" in sunrise technologies like batteries and semiconductors, and chemical and materials engineers are therefore in fact "the need of the hour."

BSMurty of IITHyderabad reminded students to prioritize national interest over personal gain, while VenkappayyaRDesai (IITDharwad) urged innovative research for service to society.

REIMAGINING ENGINEERING EDUCATION

Panelists agreed that 21st-century engineering education needs to transform. They discussed:

More interdisciplinary education, cross-functional with core computer science, engineering, AI and sustainability.

Increased academic industry collaboration for world implementation in practice.

Increased inclusiveness to admit students from various socioeconomic groups.

WHY SKILL DIVERSITY IS IMPORTANT

Only concern about CSE threats misses huge areas of where India must build world capacity—primarily semiconductors, batteries, chemicals and materials science. This can retard the country's capacity to compete in emerging technologies.

The panel's one-hundred-percent agreement message was direct: computer science is needed, but the future of India lies in creating engineers as a whole. Parents and students must decide based on passion and the needs of the nation—not only salaries.

The state has launched a new scheme, where Goa colleges will be provided with Rs 10 lakh assistance to develop incubation centers on their campuses.

This is to enhance the interest of youth and encourage them to start new startups, chief minister Pramod Sawant said on Monday.

Sawant further said that the government has disbursed Rs 4 crore of start-up subsidies so far and that govt is giving a maximum of Rs 10 lakh as seed money to Goan start-ups, compensation of Rs 15,000 for 10 staff employed by the start-up, and a further Rs 25,000 for those with Goan staff.

"Subsidies are being provided for co-working space for cloud and internet services, and we are also refunding the amount spent on research and development," said Sawant while interacting with students of Dempo College. 

He further added the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India has set up its centre at the Economic Development Corporation and would provide handholding to anyone who wants to set up a business.

"Anyone who wants to do a business can go and meet them and they will handhold on what type of business, what is your capability and what the future is. We have also set up our Atal Incubation Centre at Goa Institute of Management. In the future, we are setting up a global capability center in Goa, which will be AI and other innovation.". A skilling centre of excellence will be established in Goa. A state data centre will also be set up in Goa," the chief minister added, further informing that at present there are 635 identified start-ups operating in Goa.

Later, he asserted, "If you go to a state like Bihar, they start preparing for IAS and IPS from Class XI and even Class VIII.". If we want to pass the Goa State Public Service Commission exam to be mamlatdars or deputy collectors, we have to prepare now. Even if we want to be a clerk, we have to pass the Staff Selection Commission exam now. It is a completely transparent exam, completely computer-based, where you get your results instantly."

Artificial Intelligence is quickly dominating sectors. The scare of job losses is visible, yet as businesses globally are racing to automate functions, professionals can also gain an advantage by being current.

The technology sector is in the middle of a shift with firms of all sizes worldwide implementing AI technologies. And the way to remain relevant in times like these is by upskilling oneself. Although AI technologies are replacing a lot of work, nothing is going to waste; there are still several new jobs being formed.

If you are looking to upskill yourself, then no platform is as great as the Internet. There are thousands of courses that are available for free and can provide you with the skills that can leave an impact on your resume. Here's a list of some of the free courses provided by Google on AI.

Introduction to Large Language Models (LLM)

An LLM is an artificial intelligence model that has been trained on huge quantities of datasets to generate human-like written responses. ChatGPT is one such LLM. Although everyone might know what all ChatGPT can accomplish, not many might possess the expertise of how an LLM works. This is a beginner course that provides an overview of what LLMs are, their applications, and how to utilize prompt tuning to enhance LLM performance. The course explores Google tools that you can use to build your own Gen AI apps. If all you want to do is learn the basics and create some Gen AI apps, this is the course for you. Introduction to Image Generation

Ever been curious about how an AI model creates an image?

Well, if you feel the need to satisfy your curiosity, this little course will get you familiar with diffusion models, a family of machine learning models that have been driving the AI image generation models. The course takes you through the theory aspect of diffusion models and how to train and deploy them in Vertex AI, Google's single platform to develop ML and AI models. The course further provides an editable badge upon completion which can complement your professional profile leading to increased career prospects later on. Encoder-Decoder Architecture This is a 30-minute course that provides an overview of the encoder-decoder architecture, a machine learning architecture for sequence-to-sequence tasks.

The major tasks are primarily machine translation, text summarization, and question answering.

Students will have an opportunity to know the primary building blocks of this architecture and understand how to train and serve these models. In addition, they will also have the opportunity to code in TensorFlow, Google's open-source software library for ML and deep learning use cases. Upon graduation, learners will receive a shareable badge to demonstrate the user's expertise. Introduction to Generative AI  This can be an excellent intro if you are new to generative AI. This is a microlearning course that describes what generative AI is, how it is utilized, and why it differs from conventional ML models.

The course covers various Google Tools to enable one to create their own Gen AI apps.

The around 45-minute course provides shareable badges upon completion. The badge can be seen in a user's profile and can even be shared with their social network. Attention Mechanism Attention mechanism is a deep learning technique by which AI models can concentrate on individual or most important sections of their inputs during information processing, rather than treating everything equally. This 45-minute course provides insights into this strong technique enabling neural networks to concentrate on meaningful sections of an input sequence.

Students will learn about how attention functions, and how to leverage it to enhance the accuracy of a range of machine learning applications such as text summarization, machine translation, question answering, etc.

Shareable badges are also provided with the course. Transformer Models and BERT This course provides an overview of Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformer (BERT) model and transformer architecture. Students will learn about how the self-attention mechanism functions and drives BERT models. The course also explains how BERT can be applied to tasks like question answering, text classification, and natural language interface. The course should take approximately 45 minutes to complete, and it is also equipped with a shareable skills badge. Create Image Captioning Models This 30-minute course will instruct students on how to develop an image captioning model using deep learning.

The course discusses various parts of an image captioning model, including encoder and decoder, and even training a model and testing a model.

Google asserts that at the end of this course, a user will learn to develop their own image captioning models and use them to generate captions on images.

This course has an assignable badge.

These micro-learning courses provided by Google are a series of video tutorials along with quizzes that intend to teach the learners some of the most important things about AI. It should be mentioned that while signing up, the majority of such courses permit users to access study materials such as videos and documents for no cost. If any of the courses include labs, however, students are recommended to buy individual subscriptions or credits so that they can take maximum benefit from the labs. In order to receive the badge, students would need to finish all compulsory activities in a course

The world of education is transforming at a fast rate with the growth in the utilization of advanced technologies, recreating traditional teaching and learning processes. Adaptive curriculum is one of the most impactful practices among others that has played a significant role in transforming the education sector. It utilizes various teaching methods, evaluations, and courses to personalize the learning process for each individual learner.

At the pinnacle of adaptive curriculum are EdTech platforms, which offer teachers the most recent tools in the shape of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), data science, and machine learning. These platforms help teachers where students are doing it wrong as they initiate particular steps to fix them. In addition, these systems assist students in learning at their pace and giving them the necessary assistance to excel. In accordance with the benefits that EdTech systems offer, Fortune Business Insights has estimated the adaptive learning market across the world to reach 7.94 billion by 2027.

Key technological components of EdTech systems

The underlying technical infrastructure on which EdTech infrastructure is established is of such a nature that the learners gain access to real-life and customized learning experiences. Below is a preview of some of the most important technological aspects that enable the establishment of adaptive curriculum:

• AI and ML: AI and ML have revolutionized the EdTech industry. AI can look into the details of the students and offer customized learning based on their strengths and weaknesses. ML, on the contrary, can help in the identification of trends in the behavior of students and give insights to teachers to modify their teaching techniques.

• Learning Management Systems (LMS): These are computer-based packages of software that handle and deliver course content. These packages can talk to other EdTech systems using Learning Technologies Interoperability (LTI), a industry standard for integrating education tools and processes. LTI makes integration of different EdTech systems seamless, allowing teachers and students to use and access more technologies with greater ease.

• User interface (UI) and UX (User Experience): They are the most crucial parts of an EdTech system. UI/UX design on a learning platform can potentially have a great effect on learning outcomes and student motivation. Additionally, with an excellent UI/UX, students can naturally interact and navigate through the platform, while a bad one can lead to dissatisfaction and disconnection.

These technologies are utilized in the adaptive curriculum to bring about a change in the traditional modes of delivering education to learners. The EdTech solutions crafted by developing these technologies are designed to enable students with technical training in education and skill development, from online education to virtual classrooms, changing the way skills are learned. Moreover, these virtual offerings offer involvement, participation, and flexibility to students that the traditional methods cannot offer.

While it may appear daunting to include EdTech systems within the adaptive curriculum, technology has to function. One potential approach is aligning the technology with the teaching goals and aims. This will ensure technology is being used to reinforce the curriculum rather than replace it. Secondly, with proper training and orientation to educators about utilizing new EdTech infrastructure, it is possible to ensure technology becomes efficient and useful for pupils.

Professor Suman Chakraborty, renowned mechanical engineer and Sir JC Bose National Fellow, took charge of the newly created director's office at IIT Kharagpur on June 19. His five-year or up to 70 years of age tenure began from June 19, PTI added. He succeeded Professor Amit Patra, who was officiating as director at the institute.

Chakraborty was recognized for exceptional pioneering research on micro- and nanoscale flow of gigantic significance in diagnostic technology. His achievements are low-cost, self-use diagnostics for diseases like anemia, cancer, COVID-19, and tuberculosis to provide healthcare to the underprivileged.

He received the TWAS Award in Engineering and Computer Sciences in 2026 from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for his contributions to research.

Again in 2023, he was included among Asia's 100 leading researchers in any field, which assured his contribution towards engineering and technology.

His personal and professional life is filled with numerous awards including 2023 National Award for Teachers, 2022 Infosys Prize, and highly competitive Santi Swaroop Bhatnagar Prize. His getting appointed as a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and Royal Society of Chemistry is a recognition of his status in the world in the field of science.

Chakraborty became assistant professor at IIT Kharagpur in 2002 and senior professor by 2008. Gaining the position of director, after duty posting Amit Patra upon tenure expiry by VK Tewari in December 2024, was the most prestigious aspect of his tenure in the institute.

Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Special Commissioner Suralkar Vikas Kishor has said that the education department of the civic body, which administers more than 33 institutions, intends to tie up with EdTech companies to train its students in terms of skills.

The plan is to expose the students to different skills in their initial days of schooling, and make them confident and perform well in academics, Kishore informed The New Indian Express.

He mentioned 19,000 students have been enrolled in Palike's schools for the current academic year till date and hopes to breach the last year's 23,000 enrollment figure in the next 40 days.The emphasis will be on integral education and application of technology, Smart TV, Smart Boards and learning material in Palike's schools.

"We will also provide audio and video touch to the syllabus and the same will be made available through mobile apps so that students can study lessons at home. Palike will collaborate with EdTech companies to educate students in all areas beyond school syllabus," Kishore said, according to a report by The New Indian Express.

Trainers will be trained in the utilization of different technologies. The Palike will establish a monitoring centre at its head office to monitor the performance of students.

"For the first time ever in Palike's educational institutions, students will be introduced to extracurricular activities through institutions well known to train the students. They will learn sports like badminton, squash and cricket. Music too will form a part of their training programme. We will make payments directly to the institution that trains Palike's students," he said.

On the teachers of BBMP schools who were threatening to resign over pay and other problems, Kishore stated that their pay is determined by the state government and the Palike will try their best to keep the best teachers, stated the report from The New Indian Express.