“baryach divisaani maati la haath laavla ( soiled my hands after many days)” said a participant.

The participants of the 6-day residential training on ‘Innovation and Cutting-edge technology’ were sharing their experiences on the last day of training. 20 participants, including five female faculty, representing 17 colleges from across Maharashtra participated in the training organised by Maharashtra State Faculty Development Academy (MSFDA) in collaboration with Vishwakarma University (VU), Pune. The participants were not limited to the industrial cities of Mumbai and Pune but also came from different districts of Maharashtra such as Jalgaon, Kolhapur, Dhule, Nagpur, Ahmednagar, Latur, Satara, Hingoli, Solapur, and Parbhani. MSFDA is a Section 8 company established by the Government of Maharashtra to build capacities of college teachers and other stakeholders. One of the Centres of MSFDA – called the Centre for Innovation and Cutting-edge technology focusses on trainings in these areas and collaborates with premier institutes to impart such training. Till now, collaboration has been made with VU, Pune and Institute for Chemical Technology ( ICT), Mumbai. VU is a State private University focussing on impactful research and innovation, academics and socially-responsible outreach. It has established transdisciplinary centres of excellence with industry partners to foster research and innovation. The VU team dedicated for this project includes Dr Amol Randive, Dr Deshpande, Dr Vispute, Prof. Pratik. The support for the project emanates from the top management including the President Bharat Agarwal, Vice President Prof. Wasudeo Gade and Vice Chancellor Siddharth Jabade.

This was the Phase 2 intensive training being held face-to-face. Prior to this, VU conducted three batches of online trainings. The intensive training – some participants of which had done the online training too – focussed on transformative research and innovation, establishment of industry-academic collaboration, design thinking and entrepreneurship development. A team of 19 resource persons – academicians from VU and industry professionals interacted with the participants over a range of subjects ranging from industry-led research and innovation, industry analysis and industry outreach, digitalisation in industry, technology in education, management essentials, AR/ VR, App development and other cutting-edge technologies and design thinking. The training also included visit to VU Centre of excellence and also visit to industry ( an MSME and a bigger industry). The sessions were interactive and hands-on training was also provided.

The participants recounted their learning as ‘how to connect with industry – how to approach them, how to facilitate students connect with them’. The participants were from different disciplines – besides engineering, there were participants from microbiology, nursing and even geography. The faculty from geography mentioned that he had been teaching winds and weather – this was the first time he had been exposed to ideas of business and he found them new and relevant to his subject as well. Sessions on AR/VR, Patent search, essentials of business and management, branding, design thinking; and visits to VU and industry were especially appreciated. The energy they sensed in VU infused them with motivation and ideas that they take back to their colleges. One teacher remarked ‘ Earlier we thought that our sole goal was to obtain funding, do research and publish a Paper in Scopus indexed Journal… now we have understood that it doesn’t stop there – one has to innovate the product and connect it with industry to complete the loop.” A participant mentioned – “I am incharge of women empowerment cell in my college … having done this training, I feel now more confident to be able to guide them..” Many colleges expressed desire to collaborate with VU directly and organise such trainings in their colleges. One participant, commenting on the uniqueness of training mentioned – “we do teach.. but other than that what is important- what are the tacts of teaching, how can we help our students, how can research be useful to society, why is branding important – this is what all we learnt here”. A teacher of Marathi language said – “We always limited ouraelves to completion of syllabus; concepts such as innovation, skill – we heard and learnt here and will try to imbibe those in our teaching”

The participants also gave some useful feedback/ suggestions – such as more industry persons/ CEOs as speakers, increased training time and more hands-on training. They also suggested that conduct of such trainings at Central places can facilitate even better participation from interior areas.

The trainings in innovation and cutting-edge technology at MSFDA are part of the overall effort to reform the learning environment in colleges. The premise is that an ideal learning environment needs to nurture ‘thinking’ that can facilitate innovation. Therefore, what is needed is not to teach innovation separately – but to keep the student unconditioned and in a fear-free environment so that he/she becomes a thoughtful individual. As far as cutting-edge technologies are concerned, an attempt is made to project these as discipline-agnostic; and not limited to engineering. The culture of excellence need not be limited to few disciplines.

The coming together of teachers from across Maharashtra – both rural and urban in a one week residential training has advantages by itself. This promotes networking and cross-learning across institutes and disciplines. The presence of teachers from different disciplines brings in different perspectives and adds value to overall learning.

The teachers go back as Alumni of MSFDA/ VU and work on some local projects for which VU shall handhold them. The more entrepreneurial of them may even attempt to start a centre of excellence in collaboration with their local industry. Such trainings may also sprout organically, through initiatives by colleges themselves. A thousand flowers may bloom !

Surajkumar Babar coordinated these trainings from MSFDA side as the Centre coordinator of Innovation and cutting-edge. He was supported by the Admin, IT and logistics teams. One feedback that was common from across the participants was excellent hospitality, food and care by the MSFDA team. This was very reassuring, since as MSFDA we consider the participants the raison d’etre for our existence and we work and treat them as our beloved guests.

Anol Randive, a young motivated faculty from VU had that brightness in his eyes, when he said ” I am young and …”