Veteran academicians join Mission10X

BANGALORE, INDIA: Mission10X, a non-profit initiative launched by Wipro in September 2007, announced the inclusion of senior academicians on its advisory board.

The advisory board comprises of Prof Chidananda Gowda, former VC, Kuvempu University, Prof A S Kolaskar, VC Pune University and Prof R Natarajan, former chairman, AICTE and former director of IIT Chennai.

Mission10X also launched Faculty Resource Guide for showcasing the innovation in teaching for Fluid Mechanics (non-IT subject) and Microprocessor & Interfacing (IT subject).

Pratik Kumar, executive vice president, human resources, Wipro Limited, said: "There is a wide gap between industrial requirements and what is being taught inside classrooms. As per record, there are 15,000 engineering colleges in India of which only 10-20 percent students succeed in getting the right job."

"Freshers find it difficult to cope up with the mounting pressure in the initial stage of any job, as they were not exposed to the practicality of a subject. It is this issue that we are trying to address. These academicians are expected to give a fillip to Mission10X's innovative approaches of addressing the employability landscape in India," Kumar said.

Prof. Viresh Baslalli, director, Sir M Viswesvaraya Institute of Technology, Bangalore, said: "Mission10X is a first of its kind in the country for the development of faculty. Our faculty members who attended the first batch of the program have tried out various innovative methods inside classrooms."

"Being a part of the Mission10X advisory board, these academicians will help us further enhance the systemic changes that Mission10X has initiated in transforming teaching/learning paradigms in colleges across the country," Kumar added.

"As of now ,10 colleges from Karnataka have been selected for the program. At the end of the year we aim at training 1,000 teachers. The training program is not constrained to engineering faculty alone. Faculty members and colleges are selected from across verticals and the country," he informed.

Mission10X program involves a layered set of capability building workshops, at the end of which certificates are given to help faculty nurture talent pool across the country and students imbibe higher understanding of a subject and at the same time develop key behavioral skills that would lead to higher employability.

Mission10X has covered five states till date and aims to cover 10,000 faculty members by the end of the year 2010. It will be launched in a phased manner across the country.