These sessions will generate an environment of inventions and design thinking in the minds of our youth: Director NIT

Srinagar: With an aim to boost faculty members and researchers, the five-day-long online Faculty Development Program (FDP) on ‘Cognitive Skills and Design Thinking’ began here at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Srinagar on Saturday.
The inaugural session of online training programme was inaugurated and presided by Director NIT, Dr. Prof. Rakesh Sehgal who was the chief guest on the occasion. He said it is a new type of course which we are offering to the faculty and research scholars of the J&K and Ladakh.
“These sessions will generate an environment of inventions and design thinking in the minds of our youth,” he said.
Dr. Sehgal said it is the need of the hour to conduct such online courses on cognitive skills. If foundational cognitive skills are working efficiently and accurately, and then learning process gets good to start off.
Director NIT said with a strong cognitive foundation and sufficient learning capacity, teaching can be more effective and efficient.
Registrar NIT, SK Bukhari said the program aims to boost the overall teaching-learning process for both faculty and researchers of the institute. “Such session will give exposure to our faculty and research scholars to new dimensions in the education field,” Bukhari said.
The session was later addressed by Prof. M. F Wani who delivered the inaugural speech said the course is new in its kind in the respect that it pertains to every walk of life and shall be helpful in nurturing the environment for creativity and innovative designs.
The five-day-long course is sponsored by AICTE (Faculty Development Cell) and HoD- Information Technology Dr. Shabir Ahmad Sofi is the coordinator and convener of the program.
While Dr. Prof. M. A Tantray from Civil Engineering, Dr. M. Mursaleen from Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Shaima Qureshi from Computer Science & Engineering are the course coordinators for the program.
In November 2020, NIT Srinagar and AICTE New Delhi NIT Srinagar had executed an MoU for conducting training courses for the benefit of J&K and Ladakh UTs, as per of the MoU four online Faculty Development Programs for the AICTE Approved Institutes, academic colleges, and Universities of UTs of J&K and Ladakh during the month of March 2021.
Coordinator Dr. Shabir Ahamad Sofi informed that resource persons for the course are exceptionally experienced faculty members from a reputed institute like IITs, NITs, Kashmir University, Central University of Kashmir, COEP Pune, etc.
“The content of the invited talks will cover a wide range of topics on cognitive skills and design thinking. The sessions will be highly useful for the Faculty members and research scholars who participated in the course,” he said.
On inaugural day, around 100-120 participants from J&K, Ladakh, and other parts of India participated in the virtual program.
The second and third sessions on course overview and application design in sensor networks was hosted by Dr. Shabir A. Sofi and the fourth session on ‘Patents in Design’ by Dr. M. Ahsan Chishti, Associate Professor, Central University of Kashmir.
On Sunday, the first session on Innovative Mindset by Prof. Danish from NIT Srinagar, second session on application design in Internet of Things Dr. M. Ahsan Chishti (CUK), and third session on Cognitive Learning & Application Deployment will be hosted by Dr. Majid Zaman Scientist D, University of Kashmir.
On Monday, all three sessions on ‘Rapid Prototyping’ will be hosted by Prof. Sheikh Ghulam Mohd. (Ex. Faculty NIT Srinagar), Prof. Karunakaran, IIT Bombay and Prof. Sandeep Asnane, from COEP Pune.
On Tuesday, the first session will be hosted by Dr. Narottam Chand, Associate Professor, NIT Hamirpur on Data Generation in Sensor Applications, second session on Data Analytics will be delivered by Dr. Hanief Associate Professor, NIT Srinagar. The third session on IoT Data Analytics will be hosted by Kalimullah Lone. This session will be followed by ‘Social Immersion as design thinking tool’ to be delivered by Dr. Jyoti Kumar from IIT Delhi. On a similar day, the last session on Data Management in Internet of Things shall be delivered by Dr. Saniya Zahoor from the University of Kashmir.
On concluding day, the first session will be hosted by Prof. M.wA Tantray, NIT Srinagar on Smart Concrete and the second session on Adaptive Control Structures will be delivered by Prof. M.A Tantray & Zubair Rashid from NIT Srinagar. After that feedback will be taken from the participants.

KR Desk