BITS Pilani Dubai Campus (BPDC) recently celebrated Engineers’ Day to commemorate the efforts of engineers across the world and to also mark the birth anniversary of Bharat Ratna Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya who is considered as one of the finest engineers in the world. This year’s theme “Engineers for the betterment of humanity” focused on preparing engineers to harness the power of engineering and integrating the human-centered design approach to foster sustainable community development around the world.
Organized by the I.E.I (The Institution of Engineers, India) BPDC Student chapter, the webinar provided students an opportunity to understand how their work can contribute to broad social and environmental goals and how engineering and technology are central to building a sustainable modern world. I.E.I represents India in several international matters pertaining to engineers and is a pioneer body, since 1928, continuously introducing engineering education programmes.
On the occasion, Director of BITS Pilani Dubai Campus, Prof. Srinivasan Madapusi, stressed on the importance of frugal and humanitarian engineering in today’s context highlighting the importance of carrying out interdisciplinary research leading to meaningful inventions for societal benefit, especially for the disadvantaged communities.
Welcoming the virtual congregation of future BITS Pilani Engineers, Prof. Srinivasan said, “The 21st century engineering graduates need to be change makers, social entrepreneurs, frugal innovators, facilitators of sustainable development, and those providing solutions for those at the bottom of the pyramid. Frugal Engineering and Humanitarian Engineering concepts need to be realigned with the current engineering education to build the visionary engineers of tomorrow who are socially, culturally and emotionally intelligent. We at BITS Pilani understand the importance of holistic engineers and hence our programs enable students to learn the engineering concepts and use them for the benefit of the society. We encourage students to come up with ideas that are cost effective, sustainable and for marginalized people of the economy”
The Chief Guest, Satish Kumar Menon, Chief of Operations, ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute), UAE, made a remarkable speech by reminding students that, “Engineers must combine the technical knowledge with humanitarian concepts and designs imitative of nature to be effective in their professional careers. He encouraged students to develop projects that offer creative solutions by successfully deriving inspiration from environment and combining them with artificial intelligence.”
Sharing his perspective on the role of engineering in circular economy Mr. Menon conveyed that “Engineers need to rethink radically and utilize their skillsets to design products that help minimize waste and can be recycled. A circular economy model in the long run creates more value, profits and jobs by reducing pressure on the environment, reutilizing resources and boosting economic growth”.
Faculty's Talk by Dr. Nitin Simha Vihari emphasized that BITS PILANI Dubai campus is one of the few universities where engineering programs are developed to have ethics and sustainability embedded within their professional practice courses. Exposing students to real world problems, finding solutions that are humane and practicing ethics and sustainability while studying on campus are some of the attributes that students of BITS PILANI have adopted at early stages of their careers setting them apart from the rest.
Overall, an extremely informative event true to the theme concluded with an online engineering quiz where knowledge and instincts of students were tested with attractive prizes won by the winners. The event was chaired by Dr. Shashank Khurana, Assistant Professor – Mechanical Engineering, and Faculty Incharge of I.E.I. BPDC Student Chapter, the first international student chapter of I.E.I since 2017.
