dkspost parts 4-6

Fourth Part – Education:

Let us have a quick look at education. Initially, when education at a higher level started, every aspect of learning came under philosophy. May be the influence of religion. While Indian education system of early days integrated all aspects like mathematics, logic, reasoning, geometry, metallurgy, heat, biology and ecology and cosmic science into practice. Both diversity and integration were quite strong. The bias was both for spiritual and practical usage. It was Pythagoras who divided the gamut of knowledge into sciences and humanities. While west looked at language as part of humanities, India, particularly, Panini looked at it from mathematical and correctness perspectives. He built a grammar called Ashtadhyayi to provide precise rules and procedures.  Later the formalization of education in the west led to the establishment of universities dealing with all areas. That is why they are called universities. Later segmentation started. We got institutes of technology, universities of science/medicine etc. We set up departments. They became islands. The need of the hour is to break the barriers. It is not done by regulatory actions, but through thought leadership, mindset changes and cross fertilization amongst disciplines. Interdisciplinary activities exist but they consider themselves different. They don’t help in integration and diversification.

The problem is deep. It starts at admission level by fixing qualifications and sticking to the letter. Supreme court had the good sense to tell Allahabad high court not to overrule expert views. Actually, it is a trivial point. The court says MEd is not equal to MSc(ed) see the strong myopic views. We need to change this. We need to remove the barriers, relax a number of regulations and change mindsets.

Fifth Part – areas of impact:

We need to start our approach from interdisciplinary perspective, not a narrow view of a discipline. We have a lot of applications of technology. Hospitals use expensive devices and systems. Most of us are aware of this. But Operation and maintenance is difficult leave alone manufacturing and improving technologies for these devices. Many industries like steel use many machines, lots of measurements and heavy automation. Do we touch upon them? So, we need to look at different aspects of use and build a holistic education system. We need to look at core components -materials, energy, sensors and measurements, control and automation, basics of design, analysis , problem solving techniques, basic engineering principles and manufacturing principles, visualization, problem generation and exploration ,social behavior, science, technology diffusion, social ecological and life style impacts of technology, smart networks of water, gas, power and transportation, systems science and engineering, engineering practices ,integration methodologies, cyber physical systems , technology trends and futures, engineering philosophy etc before we talk of disciplines. So, we see a sizable chunk of these appearing before disciplines. This will change our overall views. This will bring in a first step for holistic approach. This needs discussions and consensus. Many believe there is interdisciplinary approach in our education. But that is minimal and peripheral. We need to know why there is urgency for such an approach. That is due to the explosive developments of new digital technologies and the possibility of many new applications of ML and AI – machine learning and Artificial Intelligence. This heralded the arrival of autonomous driverless cars and a brand new look cyber physical systems. They will dominate in the years to come.

Sixth Part – environmental impact:

Now Let us look at the impact of technology on our nature and resources. Bacon said exploit nature. Engineers did that. It led to rapid depletion of resources, degradation of nature, destruction of forests and a very large levels of air and water pollution plus climate change. A river called Lakshmana theertha has a lot of sewerage flowing in it particularly during summer months. This leads to cholera in many places on the river. Air pollution story of Delhi draws supreme court’s attention. London suffered for several decades due to fog or smog. This was due to coal burning in houses for heating. This reduced visibility. Sherlock Holmes suffered from this. When electrical and gas heating were introduced, this problem disappeared. So remember Isa Upanishad which says all nature and its resources belong to god. Use them with sacrifices in mind and action. Gandhi said ” nature can meet our needs but not greed.” So, it is clear engineering and society are strongly related. Engineering impacts our living.