Plaksha University's Young Technology Scholars program reimagines critical thinking and social responsibility for school students in India

Addressing complex societal challenges, the program inspires students to make a positive impact through innovation and problem-solving

India, June 27, 2023: Plaksha University, a new-age tech university that is reimagining technology education and research in India with cutting-edge technology programs, successfully concluded the sixth edition of its Young Technology Scholars (YTS) program. YTS is a two-week intensive summer program, aimed at providing hands- on and interdisciplinary learning to a select cohort. YTS encourages students to learn to leverage technology to address complex societal challenges through hands- on learning and interdisciplinary coursework.

This year 200 talented school students participated in the program from Class 9 to 12 across various cities of the country, including Delhi, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Gangtok, Dehradun, Indore, Pune, and international students from Singapore and USA.

Speaking about the program Amit Sheth, Professor of Practice at Plaksha University and Faculty In charge, YTS said, “YTS is specifically crafted to cultivate the growth and skills of school students in addressing complex societal challenges. It achieves this by facilitating their active involvement and collaboration with experts and academicians from diverse disciplines. The primary objective of the program is to empower young minds, inspiring them to delve into the exploration of interconnectedness between different disciplines. By encouraging interdisciplinary learning, the program enables students to harness their collective knowledge and skills, ultimately leading them towards the discovery of innovative solutions to these challenges.

“Students participating in Plaksha’s YTS program do not need to know coding. Here we develop coding skills from scratch and harness the power of programming to improve critical thinking, problem-solving abilities, and unlock diverse career opportunities. We encourage students to be creative and explore their surroundings to cultivate a vibrant community of tinkerers and idea generators who are driven to make a positive impact on society,” he added.

During this program, the students worked on five captivating projects: ECG machine, EMG machine, game designing, tele-operated robots, and Agbot. These projects were designed to foster creativity, critical thinking, and innovation among the scholars. The students worked on these projects under the mentorship of Plaksha faculty members and industry experts, including Dr. Ravi Jasuja (Co-founder of Plaksha University and Director, Translational Research & Discovery, RPMH, MGB, Harvard Medical School) and Dr. Hanumant Singh (Director, Multidisciplinary Center of Robotics, Northeastern University).

About Plaksha University

Founded by a global community of 100+ technology and business leaders, Plaksha envisions to reimagine technology education and research for India and the world. With strong partnerships with UC Berkeley, Purdue, UC San Diego, IIT Kanpur, and IISc Bangalore, Plaksha aims to nurture and empower a generation of catalytic leaders and create an ecosystem of research and innovation. The university collapses the traditional boundaries of engineering and promotes interdisciplinary learning by combining technology, design and entrepreneurship.

Plaksha is guided by an eminent academic board including Dr. Vijay Kumar, Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering, University of Pennsylvania; Venkatesh Narayanamurthi, former Dean of Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Sriram Rajamani, Managing Director, Microsoft Research India Julia Ross, Dean of Engineering, Virginia Tech; Krishna Palepu, Ross Graham Walker Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School; Sanjay Sarma, Fred Fort Flowers and Daniel Fort Flowers Professor of Mechanical Engineering, MIT; and business leaders such as Neeraj Aggarwal, Chairman – Asia Pacific, BCG; Hitesh Oberoi, Co-promoter & CEO, Info Edge (Naukri.com); Srikanth Velamakanni, Co-founder, Fractal Analytics; Manas Fuloria, Co- Founder, Nagarro; Rakesh Bharti Mittal, Vice Chairman, Bharti Enterprises; Navin Chaddha, Managing Director, Mayfield Fund; Sujeet Kumar, Co-founder, Udaan.com; Dalip Pathak, Special Limited Partner, Warburg Pincus LLC; CP Gurnani, MD & CEO, Tech Mahindra; Pramod Bhasin, Chairman, Clix Capital among others. Corporate donors include companies like Bharti Foundation, Havells, HT Parekh Foundation, Mphasis, Axis Bank and Motilal Oswal. The global community of business leaders who founded Plaksha can be seen here.