Progressive Curriculum: Chitkara University
Creating Leaders of Tomorrow
Abhinav Verma was an 11 year old school boy when he started his journey of innovation by creating a device that enabled people who lost their hands to hold objects. Despite showing his prodigious talent at a very young age, Abhinav could not quite formulate a plan for his masterpiece until he met Dr. Madhu Chitkara, an academician of 40 years and Vice Chancellor of Chitkara University. It was in his first year of Mechanical Engineering at Chitkara University Punjab campus that Abhinav was taken to the Vice Chancellor's office by his HOD to discuss his innovative ideas. After carefully listening to Abhinav's series of plans, Dr. Madhu Chitkara advised him, "Focus on one thing and create it before you venture into numerous projects. We will help you achieve your goals."
According to Abhinav, Dr. Madhu Chitkara's words took him from zero to one where zero is thinking and one is doing. Abhinav remembers, "I was a guy with many ideas, but with no clear focus on which one to take up seriously. The discussion with Dr. Madhu gave me immense confidence and I started working on my master invention called Live Braille." Invented as a glove-type device that can help visually-impaired people 'run through obstacles, or win a hurdle race,' Live Braille received wide appreciations from all over the globe and helped Abhinav to hold three patents and awards from four different countries. Today, Live Braille has been upgraded to a wearable ring that can navigate blind people and Abhinav who is in his final year of Mechanical Engineering at Chitkara University, runs his own venture called Embro S, a company focusing at developing breakthrough wearable human augmentation devices. While, Abhinav is busy today hovering between his academics and his business that exports more than thousand units of Live Braille a month to different countries, Chitkara University has many more highly scalable student-owned companies in its Innovation Incubator, working hard to emerge as leading national players. Trideal.in, Mobile Web Pixel, and Schoolpad are few names among the 12 companies that are supported by Chitkara Innovation Incubator.
"We cannot make leaders in the four walls of a class room. A classroom is only a place where you take the fundamentals. If you want to understand what is going around the world, you have to be in the field and you need to have a clear frame work in your brain. That frame work is created by the faculty with support of research and industry," explains Dr. Ashok Chitkara, Chancellor, Chitkara University. With 75 percentage of the faculty members either holding a PhD or pursuing one, Chitkara University is known for its strategic, multidisciplinary research explorations. Faculty members are constantly involved in research publications and quality improvements programs. This approach helps the faculty in taking students' imaginations beyond classroom teaching to actual scientific exploration. Chitkara University is one of the only two institutions in India that received the prestigious HP Innovation Grant of $ 170 thousand and one among five institutions selected from Asia-Pacific, including Japan, for creating technology that is accessible to everyone as a way to learn, work and benefit from information.
To foster research culture in the university, the management has established Chitkara University Research and Innovation Network (CURIN). At CURIN various research centres build and sustain Chitkara University's competitive advantage through leadership. These centres and institutes are the locus of research for collaborative groups of investigators pushing the frontiers of knowledge forward. Along with such efforts to improve research inside the campus, the university maintains strong connections with international universities. With over 70 international collaborations, the university houses good number of students and faculty members from foreign universities at the campus.
As result of elaborated international linkages, meaningful industry tie-ups and faculties with research focus, Chitkara University has been registering path breaking recruitment records for graduates from various academic programs since its inception. "We consider job as an outcome of quality education. Hence, we provide students quality education and we want them to be proud Indians who are settled anywhere in the world but having a world class education with us," concludes Dr. Ashok Chitkara. From business management programs to programs in nursing and medical laboratory technologies; and from computer science, electronics and mechanical engineering programs, to hotel management and architecture - Chitkara University is a veritable cornucopia of educational services.
Dr. Ashok Chitkara, Chancellor
Born in Sept 1952, Dr. Ashok Chitkara has created benchmarks for generations to come. He made his foray into the field of Mathematics by doing B.Sc (Hons School) Mathematics, M.Sc (Hons) Mathematics from Delhi University. He was also awarded a Gold Medal in his M.Sc. (Mathematics) for topping the Delhi University. He then went on to pursue his B.Ed, M.Ed and PhD, which chiselled him to perfection for teaching as a career. He has to his name the credit of contributing 25 research papers in various journals.
Abhinav Verma was an 11 year old school boy when he started his journey of innovation by creating a device that enabled people who lost their hands to hold objects. Despite showing his prodigious talent at a very young age, Abhinav could not quite formulate a plan for his masterpiece until he met Dr. Madhu Chitkara, an academician of 40 years and Vice Chancellor of Chitkara University. It was in his first year of Mechanical Engineering at Chitkara University Punjab campus that Abhinav was taken to the Vice Chancellor's office by his HOD to discuss his innovative ideas. After carefully listening to Abhinav's series of plans, Dr. Madhu Chitkara advised him, "Focus on one thing and create it before you venture into numerous projects. We will help you achieve your goals."
According to Abhinav, Dr. Madhu Chitkara's words took him from zero to one where zero is thinking and one is doing. Abhinav remembers, "I was a guy with many ideas, but with no clear focus on which one to take up seriously. The discussion with Dr. Madhu gave me immense confidence and I started working on my master invention called Live Braille." Invented as a glove-type device that can help visually-impaired people 'run through obstacles, or win a hurdle race,' Live Braille received wide appreciations from all over the globe and helped Abhinav to hold three patents and awards from four different countries. Today, Live Braille has been upgraded to a wearable ring that can navigate blind people and Abhinav who is in his final year of Mechanical Engineering at Chitkara University, runs his own venture called Embro S, a company focusing at developing breakthrough wearable human augmentation devices. While, Abhinav is busy today hovering between his academics and his business that exports more than thousand units of Live Braille a month to different countries, Chitkara University has many more highly scalable student-owned companies in its Innovation Incubator, working hard to emerge as leading national players. Trideal.in, Mobile Web Pixel, and Schoolpad are few names among the 12 companies that are supported by Chitkara Innovation Incubator.
"We cannot make leaders in the four walls of a class room. A classroom is only a place where you take the fundamentals. If you want to understand what is going around the world, you have to be in the field and you need to have a clear frame work in your brain. That frame work is created by the faculty with support of research and industry," explains Dr. Ashok Chitkara, Chancellor, Chitkara University. With 75 percentage of the faculty members either holding a PhD or pursuing one, Chitkara University is known for its strategic, multidisciplinary research explorations. Faculty members are constantly involved in research publications and quality improvements programs. This approach helps the faculty in taking students' imaginations beyond classroom teaching to actual scientific exploration. Chitkara University is one of the only two institutions in India that received the prestigious HP Innovation Grant of $ 170 thousand and one among five institutions selected from Asia-Pacific, including Japan, for creating technology that is accessible to everyone as a way to learn, work and benefit from information.
To foster research culture in the university, the management has established Chitkara University Research and Innovation Network (CURIN). At CURIN various research centres build and sustain Chitkara University's competitive advantage through leadership. These centres and institutes are the locus of research for collaborative groups of investigators pushing the frontiers of knowledge forward. Along with such efforts to improve research inside the campus, the university maintains strong connections with international universities. With over 70 international collaborations, the university houses good number of students and faculty members from foreign universities at the campus.
As result of elaborated international linkages, meaningful industry tie-ups and faculties with research focus, Chitkara University has been registering path breaking recruitment records for graduates from various academic programs since its inception. "We consider job as an outcome of quality education. Hence, we provide students quality education and we want them to be proud Indians who are settled anywhere in the world but having a world class education with us," concludes Dr. Ashok Chitkara. From business management programs to programs in nursing and medical laboratory technologies; and from computer science, electronics and mechanical engineering programs, to hotel management and architecture - Chitkara University is a veritable cornucopia of educational services.
Dr. Ashok Chitkara, Chancellor
Born in Sept 1952, Dr. Ashok Chitkara has created benchmarks for generations to come. He made his foray into the field of Mathematics by doing B.Sc (Hons School) Mathematics, M.Sc (Hons) Mathematics from Delhi University. He was also awarded a Gold Medal in his M.Sc. (Mathematics) for topping the Delhi University. He then went on to pursue his B.Ed, M.Ed and PhD, which chiselled him to perfection for teaching as a career. He has to his name the credit of contributing 25 research papers in various journals.
