India celebrates Engineers Day on September 15, the birth anniversary of Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, an exceptional Indian civil engineer from College of Engineering, Pune (COEP) and Diwan (chief minister) of the princely state of Mysore, who played pioneering roles in design of important dams, automatic water floodgates in 1903 and made significant contributions to India’s industrial and economic development. Awarded Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award of India, Sir Visvesvaraya’s contribution is on public display in the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum.
Prime Minister Narendera Modi congratulated the fraternity of engineers on the #EngineersDay. In a tweet he said, ”Greetings to all hardworking engineers on #EngineersDay! Their innovative minds and tireless dedication have been the backbone of our nation’s progress. From infrastructural marvels to tech breakthroughs, their contributions touch every aspect of our lives.”
In another tweet he shared pictures of his tour of Chikkaballapura where he got to know more about the great engineer. PM Modi said Sir Visvesvaraya continues to inspire generations to innovate and serve the nation.
On #EngineersDay we pay homage to Sir M Visvesvaraya, a visionary engineer and statesman. He continues to inspire generations to innovate and serve the nation. Here are glimpses from Chikkaballapura, where I paid homage to him during my visit earlier this year. pic.twitter.com/LP4Kn51TQo
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 15, 2023
Education Minister in his tribute to the iconic engineer said, “An engineer par excellence, he remains an inspiration for our #YuvaShakti. Heartfelt greetings to our talented engineering fraternity for their contribution in national progress.”
Remembering Bharat Ratna Sir M. Visvesvaraya ji on his birth anniversary also commemorated as #EngineersDay. An engineer par excellence, he remains an inspiration for our #YuvaShakti.
Heartfelt greetings to our talented engineering fraternity for their contribution in national… pic.twitter.com/BrG2y1ERtA
— Dharmendra Pradhan (@dpradhanbjp) September 15, 2023
While Engineers Day is indeed a day of celebrating and thanking engineers for the pivotal and key role they have always played a key role in societal development, contributing to and enabling initiatives that drive economic progress, enhancing social and physical infrastructures, inspiring the changes that improve quality of life and transformation in the society, it is also an occasion to remind the stakeholders in education that Engineering Education is also transforming.
The poor employability of engineering graduates and more capacity of seats than demand one hand and cutting edge success with moon landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the other defines the spectrum of engineering education realities in India.
The future horizons
A NASSCOM study identified Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data Analytics, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Cloud Computing, 3D Printing, Social and Mobile, Virtual Reality and Blockchain as technologies that would create a huge wave of transformation across industries in the coming decade. Further, the study identified the future job roles and the corresponding skills required for these technologies
The study found extensive evidence of accelerating demand for a variety of wholly new specialist roles related to understanding and leveraging these latest emerging technologies such as AI and machine learning specialists, big data specialists, process automation experts, information security analysts, user experience and human-machine interaction designers, robotics engineers, and blockchain specialists. For instance, artificial intelligence (AI) alone is poised to create 12 new job roles including solution architect, business analyst, data architect, data scientist, AI research scientist, language processing specialist, information security analyst, and DevOps engineer. Further, it is important to note that these new technologies will find application in every other industry such as Agriculture, BFSI, Life Sciences, Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare, Retail, Automotive, Manufacturing, Energy, Genomics, and Transportation.
Quotes:
“Engineering Day is a powerful commemoration of the vital role that engineers play in transforming our country. We celebrate their drive to innovation, problem-solving, and an immutable spirit to make the impossible possible.
Our engineers pursuing higher studies abroad not only broaden their horizons but also bring back invaluable knowledge and global perspectives. This continuous pursuit of excellence fuels progress and drives our industries forward. Our budding engineers have a genuine desire to excel and learn from the best. It is not only STEM knowledge but also qualifications in English that they seek so that they can express themselves better. English Qualifications become a key for our promising technologists to join courses in universities all over the globe.” — John D’Souza, Director, The English Advantage(T.E.A)
“Engineering stands as the cornerstone of progress for any nation. At NIIT, we deeply value the immense contributions of engineers to our country’s development and advancement. Our mission has always been to empower, support, and enable the brilliant talent of our nation to fully realize their potential as engineers, capable of crafting innovative solutions for tomorrow. Throughout the years, we have nurtured young graduates by equipping them with essential skills in high-demand fields like computer science and information technology, thereby playing our part in building a skilled workforce for our nation’s future.” — Pradeep Narayanan, President, NIIT Digital and Growth Initiatives, NIIT Limited
“At the heart of Thales, we have a community of engineers who are the foundation of everything we do. National Engineers Day gives us a perfect opportunity to celebrate their invaluable contributions. Combining a unique diversity of expertise, talents and cultures, thousands of engineers at our Engineering Centres in Bangalore and Noida work on extraordinary high-technology solutions across defence, aerospace and digital identity & security sectors for Indian as well as global projects.” — Ashish Saraf, VP and Country Director for India, Thales
