Tomorrow’s engineers play a critical role in tackling some huge societal issues. So as they prepare to enter the fast-moving tech sector, India’s training institutions are designing innovative ways to gear them up…
The job of the engineer is to develop economical solutions to technical problems, by applying the principles of science and math. Their work, you may say, is about making things tick. But what makes that engineer tick in the first place? If you ask Krutika Kansara, a Data Analytics and Insight IoT engineer in Pune, western India, she will tell you she inherited a numerical nous that runs in her family: her father is an income tax officer; her mother a chartered accountant. But while Kansara flexes that same easy facility for figures, she wanted to take it in a whole new direction.
“I was not interested in the fields of tax and accountancy,” says Kansara, who followed a BE electronics and communications engineering with a masters in embedded systems at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) in Pune in 2018. “My love of mathematics and science, coupled with my parents’ support, inspired me to take up engineering. And that interest in engineering now motivates me in my career: I want to gain more knowledge about the subject and apply the knowledge I have gained.”
The world should be thankful that engineers like Kansara retain such drive. Humanity is facing massive challenges. Behind the immediate concerns around global pandemics lie a wave of other issues: among them soaring populations, global poverty and famine, pressures on food, water and energy supplies, the collapse of ecosystems, urban decay and urgent and escalating climate change. It is down to thousands of engineers like Kansara, who fall in love with the subject and are driven to apply themselves to the pursuit and application of the latest know-how, to help develop solutions to tackle them.
Humanity is facing massive challenges: global pandemics, soaring populations, global poverty and famine, pressures on food, water and energy supplies, the collapse of ecosystems, urban decay and urgent and escalating climate change.
According to Khaled Benkrid, Senior Director, Education and Research at Arm Education, there is been a continuous cycle of societal challenges sparking impactful innovations from engineers for centuries, at least as far back as the Industrial Revolution.
“The invention of the steam engine allowed us to automate many manual processes and shortened distances between peoples, which eventually lifted millions and millions from poverty,” says Benkrid. “Now as we look at ways of using less energy to combat global warming, machine learning and artificial intelligence are helping us optimize our resources, time, and activities. Robots augmented with powerful sensing, memory, communication, and computing capabilities are not only automating more tasks, but also making better decisions than humans in terms of resource allocation and general problem solving. Engineers are augmenting human capabilities through advanced technology.”
In what is being dubbed the fourth industrial revolution, where AI and machine learning drive a world of low-power IoT-connected devices, today’s engineers face peculiar challenges of their own. The barrage of societal challenges has never been this global, fast-moving, or urgent. And engineers have never seen their resource base shrink so fast. Meanwhile technology is now reinventing itself at a rate humans cannot actually wrap their heads around. With the skills gap in STEM subjects already an issue, the challenge for those responsible for training new engineers is how to prepare them to keep up with these fast-moving forces.
“As we look at ways of using less energy to combat global warming, engineers are augmenting human capabilities through advanced technology.”
“All aspects of life will soon be affected by computing, so all engineers need to be educated and trained on the latest developments,” says Benkrid. “Engineers need adaptability. And they need to have a growth mindset whereby lifelong learning is espoused. Nothing stands still – continuous professional development is a must. We need an adaptable workforce with the ability to retrain quickly.”
This is where institutions like BITS step in. BITS describes itself as an academic institution with a fast-moving mindset that is all about making its students ready for work. BITS’ approach is hands-on, focusing on agility and adaptability so the institution and its students can respond to the growing needs of emerging industries. “Experiential learning components and industry-relevant case studies are inculcated in the curriculum rather making it too theoretical,” says Manoj S Kakade, Professor at BITS (and Kansara’s Masters tutor). “We update the curriculum regularly to keep the students relevant in ever growing technological areas.”
BITS is preparing engineers for today’s challenges in another key way –working directly with industry partners to ensure the hands-on training they give them is directly relevant to the latest needs of the sector. The Arm University Program (AUP) has partnered with BITS, providing content from the AUP’s Efficient Embedded System Design Education Kit to help deliver their courses.
“Engineers need adaptability. And a growth mindset whereby lifelong learning is espoused. Nothing stands still – continuous professional development is a must.”
BITS students in embedded system design, hardware software co-design and pervasive computing now get to use kits for Arm7 LPC2148 and Arm Cortex-M4 STM 32. As Arm IP is used in applications by most of the world’s chip manufacturers, this stands the students in good stead for understanding the latest industry practicalities. They get to work on complex problems and find their own solutions using Arm tools and technology.
When Kansara studied her M.Tech in embedded systems at BITS, she was thrown into studying embedded systems, real-time operating systems, pervasive computing, networking in systems and software for embedded systems. And, she says, that practical experience was a real boon.
“Having studied the concepts theoretically, I could easily apply them while studying Arm technology,” she says. “I also had a chance to do hands-on practical work with Arm processors.”
Shuojin Hang works in content development at Arm Education. From his encounters with young graduates, he too believes it imperative that the tools, tech, software, and development boards the students work on remains closely tied to what the industry is really using.
“When hired for a specific role, a graduate engineer without much industry experience may find a gap between what he or she was taught in at university and what he or she is asked to do by the employer,” says Hang. “One has to keep learning and gaining experience along the way because everything is evolving: products, tools, processes. I remember interviewing someone who had a fantastic CV, with great academic results, but during the conversation I soon found the candidate was not equipped with many hands-on or in-depth technical skills.”
And it is not just the recruiters who appreciate the need for relevant practical experience. When graduates find themselves lacking the knowledge that industry requires, they can easily become disheartened and quit engineering prematurely for a different career.
But gift them the right practical experience, and they stand to be head and shoulders above the competition. Kansara found that using Arm’s technology during her degree had a clear impact on her early work-life. Now at an IoT startup, she found on-boarding to be instant, with minimal hand-holding. Her colleagues, meanwhile had to be trained in the latest tools and tech – and this will have cost her company time and money.
“My current job is completely focused on electronics, and I give credit to BITS for offering me industry-relevant courses, and Arm for the technology we used,” says Kansara. “In fact I am currently working on a project which requires Arm technology. Since I already had the right knowledge, it is given me an edge over my colleagues. I can work with ease and comfort. And while they are trying to fix an issue at any given moment, I am able to understand how things are working.”
She is not alone. The AUP has been offering Education Kit donations to institutions across India since 2013. In that time, it is consistently received feedback on the positive impact of Arm technology on students’ career prospects.
“Because Arm is at the heart of the computing world, we are in a privileged position to help plug the skills gap in computer engineering and STEM education.”
AUP has also partnered with Manipal School of Information Sciences (MSOIS) at Manipal, Udupi, an industry-driven, state-of-the-art training institute covering VLSI design, embedded systems, medical software and data sciences, IoT and cloud computing. Like BITS, its curriculum is frequently updated as per industry needs, this time in consultation with companies that include Philips, Intel, Infineon, and Synopsys. The Manipal faculty believes nothing can surpass an immersive learning experience, and many of its students cite the faculty as the sole fuel for their passion for engineering.
The Manipal curriculum teaches subjects like real-time operating systems, microcontrollers, computer architecture, device drivers, embedded system design and IoT. All of which are related to Arm architecture. These courses focus on a hands-on approach so AUP’s educational kits and licenses for designing software applications are vital.
As a part of curriculum students must also complete a project, which involves interfacing and programming various sensors, actuators and display devices to Arm boards; and implementing multi-tasking and real-time embedded applications. Past projects have included a temperature-based fan, light sensors and buzzers and proximity sensors and DC fans.
As well as supplying materials and kits for courses, Arm became an industry partner and consultant on Manipal’s new IoT Masters program in 2018. This is another example of how AUP is helping fulfil this vital role of connecting academic institutions, industry, and young engineers. The aim is for more people to follow in the footsteps of Kansara, and develop a lifelong dedication to engineering – and to tackling the many critical problems facing society today.
“Because Arm is at the heart of the computing world, we are in a privileged position to help plug the skills gap in computer engineering and STEM education,” says Benkrid. “Arm Education’s state-of-the-art educational materials are being used by hundreds of thousands of students globally. We are unleashing the potential of engineers worldwide, regardless of their origins and means. There is no mission more noble than this.”
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