“This is how we have always done it,” screams a poster at Makerspace, the design innovation lab at Plaksha University in Mohali. This is the danger that the newly founded science and technology university promises to avoid. Plaksha is trying to change the rules of technical education, changing everything from the way it is funded, how it works, how it is taught, and even the curriculum itself. As founding Vice-Chancellor RudraPratap says, “If you start from scratch, “It’s a whole different game.”
The eminent professor from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, says he was excited to join Plaksha simply because it offered a chance to do something radical and different. “The time for science and technology has come. If we don’t step on the pedal and step on the gas, we risk missing a whole century,” he says.
He hastens to point out that he is not demeaning the achievements of the IITs or the IISC. State institutions have done a phenomenal job. But therein lies the limitation of public financing. “When you have public resources, you’re working in a structure that’s been in place for 50 to 70 years, reporting to a different group of people who may not care about goals but about rules,” he says.
In contrast, he says, “With private financing, they only care about the outcome.” Beyond that, it’s up to you to write the rules.” That’s what the Plaksha team did, he says: it did established its own rules for the operation of a research-oriented technology university.
Innovation economics
“If India needs to move from a service economy to an innovation economy, we need to teach children to think. They need to be more creative,” says Hitesh Oberoi, one of the founders of Plaksha University and its trustee and CEO and MD of Info-Edge, describing the vision behind the institute. He says Plaksha believes in interdisciplinary education, multidisciplinary education and more holistic development.
Hitesh Oberoi, Co-Promoter, MD and CEO, Info Edge Ltd, Founder and Trustee, Plaksha University and Makerspace
The university, says Oberoi, was funded by the collective philanthropy of more than 70 to 80 donors, including many tech entrepreneurs who generously opened their wallets. “But it’s not just about money, it’s about the many other things they do – mentoring support for students, building university partnerships with companies, helping with faculty hiring, helping with public relations, admissions, brand building and more.” Many of the founders are involved in everything Plaksha is trying to change and do,” says Oberoi. The Bharti Foundation, the Havells family and the HT Parekh Foundation are all big supporters.
The campus opened its doors to students in late 2021 and the first undergraduate students will pass out in June 2025 – although over 200 students (four cohorts) from the year-long Postgraduate Tech Leaders Fellowship Program (TLFP) have passed out and been placed.
A tour of the campus with students: Avishi Rajgarhia, who is a third year studying data science, economics and business administration, Vedika Aggarwal, also a third year majoring in computer science and artificial intelligence, and PranjalRastogi, a second year student studying interested in robotics, and a conversation with them will show you how different the teaching approach is here. The students are all passionate about solving our planet’s problems, inspired by the Integrated Learning through Grand Challenges program. The project-based ILGC exposes students to the problems facing society that can be solved through technology.
In the Makerspace lab, sponsored by Havells, you will meet its leader Amit Sheth, Professor of Practice, who says: “My job is to turn ordinary people who don’t have a creative background into design thinkers.” The lab is full of cardboard boxes and toys of all kinds – a closer look reveals that these are not toys, but deep scientific mysteries, many of which come from nature. This is a space where students can do crafts. Innovative furniture is designed from the boxes. All sorts of interesting projects – including an energy-efficient compact wind turbine inspired by the biology of trees – are in various stages of completion.
But the first step to developing better products or services is to get there and study them. For one semester, all students have to study various services in Chandigarh. “Someone studied the bus stand, someone studied a government hotel and a private hotel, a student surveyed a hospital in Chandigarh, a student even studied the prison. The idea is to look at different services, talk to people and find out the problems and gaps,” says Sheth.
Among the interesting findings is the idea of a better designed food cart for a single-aisle aircraft. “When the food truck moves down the aisle, no one can pass by, so a team of students worked on a cart that becomes a flat structure — a phenomenal idea,” says Sheth.
Another project is a drone equipped with sensors that can help sugarcane farmers determine the perfect time to harvest.
Back on our tour, the students show us the new-age classrooms, which are equipped with projectors and whiteboards. There are small group rooms near the classrooms where a team of students can sit and work together. The library is a huge room with similar zones. Next we visit the teaching studio. Since many courses deal with completely new topics and the teachers design their own modules, the university records the videos.
The all-residential campus is dotted with fascinating works of art – a gigantic installation depicting a map of the Land of the Five Rivers made of electrical circuit boards is eye-catching – has a huge area with football fields, tennis, basketball and badminton courts. The hostels are air-conditioned, the high-ceilinged cafeteria is full of quirky lighting and artwork, there’s a tuck shop and plenty of areas to relax.
You notice that there are no departments here. A traditional university might have a computer science department, a biotechnology department, etc. Instead, there are research centers here that focus on problems—clean energy, water security, sustainable agriculture, climate, equitable health, and so on. “Depending on your interests, you will become part of the research center you like and receive appropriate incentives. There is a specific set of funding available for problem X and a different set for problem Y. In a team with people from other disciplines, you help solve this problem,” explains Pratap.
Plaksha University students and faculty participate in experiments that promote interaction
To promote interdisciplinarity, the dean calls a meeting of all faculty members every Friday at which teachers give each other a summary of their teaching content. “The faculty members themselves are trained, they push boundaries. They are not in their cocoon and just do their own regular classes,” emphasizes Pratap. The result is that they can make cross-references to other disciplines in their courses.
The focus on the humanities is also very different – it’s not just about simple language and communication, but also about the courses “Art of Thinking” and “Redesigning Technology and Society”. “In this interconnected world, we deal with technology and the Anthropocene and how humans are at the heart of the planet’s problems and how technology can be used to solve them,” says Brainerd Prince, who directs the Center for Thought, Language and Communication.
Pratap, Sheth and Prince all emphasize the need to get students to ask a million questions, think hard and think holistically. “It’s a long journey. To create the culture that the humanities scientist talks to an engineer who is in dialogue with the scientist who has to talk to the computer scientist. The dialogue must be continuous – only then can we achieve what we want to achieve,” concludes Pratap. What is important is that a start has been made.
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