4^th July, 2020

Master Class with Change Maker

Training and Placement Cell, IIT Patna in association with E-Cell, IIT Patna organised a live Webinar on “Connecting the Dots: Challenges are Opportunities to innovate” by Mr Vikas Vaibhav, DIG(ATS), an alumnus of IIT Kanpur from Mechanical Engineering (1997-2001) in line with on-going weekend webinar by eminent personality to share their knowledge and experiences to students of IIT Patna on how to remain motivated and committed to their goals to achieve great heights in life.

Kripa Shankar Singh, Training and Placement Officer of IIT Patna welcomed the guest speaker and set the agenda of webinar. The session was very inspiring where Mr. Vikas Vaibhav started with his Journey from IIT Kanpur to IPS. He spent his childhood days in Bihar and shared the challenges he felt and from then his mind was clear to contribute towards the change.

Mr. Vikas Vaibhav started his preparation for UPSC in the 3rd year at IIT Kanpur and shared how he used take out time to prepare for UPSC. He started his service as Assistant Superintendent of Police (Probationer), in year 2003 and told how looking into problems through a different perspective and thinking out of the box solves them. He told that whenever there is a challenge it comes with an opportunity to deliver. He inspired all students with many examples and told to gain satisfaction within your own mind from what you do. Also due to his keen interest in history from his childhood he started a blog named “Silent Pages: Travels in the Historical Land of India” in 2013.

Then he talked about Scope & Ecosystem for Entrepreneurship in today’s context. He told that the scope of Entrepreneurship will always be there and the scope keeps on changing. We should be ready to adapt the changes and ready to face the challenges with a positive mind. And he shared some challenges he faced at his various postings and how thinking out of the box solved these.

Students also got to learn how they should set the goals for their lives. He told that he was very sure that he wanted to enter in Civil Services because he wanted to serve the people so that he gets satisfaction. He told students that they should try to think how they want to see themselves after a decade or two from now and then decide the nature of the job that satisfy them internally. He also told that while setting a goal and planning a career think of a job that interests you so that you can deliver the best and then certainly you rise.

Then he shared the success mantra to crack UPSC. Some of the points he included were:

• Start early, summer/winter vacations are the best time to prepare for general studies
• Have a look at the question papers and don’t lose focus
• Read good books and check for latest materials available
• Take advice from recently appeared people
• You should know how to deliver yourself better

Students from B.Tech., M.Tech and MSc disciplines have participated in this live webinar. Good number of relevant questions was asked by the participants. Some questions were asking about his blog, how the people in police services manage their emotions when they lose someone from their team, how police officers use technologies, how to keep disciplined in daily lives etc. and all these questions were answered properly by the guest. Program was ended with thank you note. It was really an inspiring and insightful webinar and everyone has enjoyed throughout the interactive session.

20^th June, 2020

Cracking the code to “Survive & Thrive”

Training and Placement Cell of Indian Institute of Technology organized a live Webinar on “Cracking the code to Survive and Thrive” by Amitabh Ray, Managing Director, Ericsson Global Services India, alumni of Columbia Business School, New York, in line with the ongoing weekend webinar sessions by eminent personalities from industry to share their knowledge and experiences with the students.

Our Training and Placement Officer, Mr. Kripa Shankar Singh, welcomed and introduced the guest speaker for the webinar and set the talk in motion. The guest mainly discussed the key ingredients for surviving dauntingly the unprecedented and chaotic events and disruptions occurring in the world. He presented a wide range of topics varying from chaos, to technology change to the industrial revolution to COVID-19 and ingredients for survival in unforeseen events.

Mr. Ray vividly explained the various changes, unprecedented events and chaos one experiences through his personal life experiences and the disruptions that he faced in his career. Some of his own unique experiences are enlisted as follows.

• September 2001 – Global Terror
• December 2001 – Enron Bankruptcy
• October 2002 – PwC exits Consultancy: The Sarbanes Oxley Act forces Big 5 to separate audit from the advisory. PwC sells consulting business to IBM.
• September 2008 – Lehman Bros collapse
• January 2020 – COVID-19

Therefore, in the most general sense, Mr Ray said that the essential qualities one must aspire in an unforeseen environment is to be-

• Agile
• Adaptive
• Analytical

Next, Mr Ray proceeded towards discussing the significant events reflecting the phenomenal changes that are occurring in the market, industry, education and in general, throughout the world. Some of the key points discussed are-

• The velocity of technological change is phenomenal.
• 65% of the jobs that will exist in 2030 haven’t even been invented yet.
• Nearly 50% of subject knowledge acquired during the first year of a four-year technical degree becomes outdated by the time a student graduated.
• Conventional jobs, such as retail cashier, librarian, journalist, telemarketer, travel agents, will diminish and become obsolete. Roles such as AI engineer, technology ethicist, app developer, drone pilot, app developer, driverless car engineer, user experience engineer are some of the jobs that will present bright prospect in the coming years.

Mr. Ray said, “the things we see all around us today will not be there tomorrow”. He thus addressed the need to survive in unprecedented and ever-changing scenarios by striving to be agile, adaptive and analytical.

Mr. Ray explained how most of the major companies such as Facebook, IBM, Microsoft, got created as a consequence of an unprecedented event. He further explained how the current situation of COVID-19 boosted the Fourth Industrial Revolution. COVID-19 will bring about a large number of ICT opportunities. Some of which are enlisted as follows-

• Digital platforms & Big Data
• Online healthcare service
• New smart cities and parks
• Online education services
• Remote office and online activities
• 5G industry applications
• Supply chain management

The speaker discussed the curse of success, dominant logic and problem vs paradox concept. He explained that the problem has a fixed singular solution, and a paradox does not have a fixed resolution, it may have several viable solutions. Institutions teach us to deal with problems. However, one is faced with paradoxes in their practical life. Lastly, Mr. Ray explained the following essential qualities one must possess as a student, professional or an entrepreneur to survive unforeseen challenges of the current market-

• Always look-out for new opportunities,
• Help those in need.
• Present an alternative.
• Don’t make long term plans; Survive first and then shine theory.

Students from B.Tech, M.Tech. And M.Sc disciplines attended the live webinar. A good number of questions were asked, and the guest answered them accurately and satisfactorily. The program ended after the Q&A session. This was an insightful, informative and enlightening webinar and was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

14^th June 2020

Ethics and Morality provide a competitive advantage in the industry: Vibhash Kumar
Or
IOCL Executive Director speaks at virtual webinar with IIT Patna students

In line with the ongoing weekend webinar series, Training and Placement Cell of Indian Institute of Technology organised a live Webinar on “Ethics and Ethical Leadership in Crisis Management, Perspective in Present Pandemic” by Mr. Vibhash Kumar, Executive Director, Indian Oil Corporation Limited (Bihar & Jharkhand). An eminent personality from Industry, Mr Vibhash Kumar shared his knowledge and experiences to students of IIT Patna on, to remain motivated and committed to their goals while navigating this unprecedented crisis the world is experiencing in the form of COVID.

Kripa Shankar Singh Training & Placement Officers of IIT Patna welcomes the guest with words of wisdom and sets the agenda of the event. He said that the pandemic has changed the concept of how people used to work and think on a broader scale.

In his talk, Mr Vibhas shared the importance and the need to understand ethics, business and leadership ethics, leadership in crisis management and its importance in the ongoing pandemic.

He talked about how, apart from technical knowledge, ethics and morality are a scale of the judgement of an individual and provide a competitive advantage in the industry. Through case studies of self-driving car and medical testing, he discussed the relative nature of ethical dilemma. He talked about the values propagated by ethical organisations, values such as- trustworthiness, respect, fairness, empathy, customer care, workplace diversity, high professional integrity and reporting of unethical behaviour (whistleblower policy).

The relationship among the stakeholders, company, society, customers and the environment hold tremendous importance concerning the ethical background of a company.

He also talked about essential ethical leadership attributes. He inspired the young IITians to generate these qualities of justice, respect, honesty, compassionate nature, team building, value-driven decision making, encouraging initiatives and leadership by examples.

Towards the end, Mr Vibhas discussed the importance of leadership in a crisis, especially in terms of the COVID pandemic. Prompt recognition, identification, acceptance and effective improvised responses have helped the organisations through crises. He also shared the crisis management of IOCL in the COVID era, how they have responded the nation-wide lock down in positive way. They have shown outstanding example of Supply chain management where provided 20 lac LPG cylinder on daily basis. IOCL improvises on being flexible and aware, inspiring yet thankful, but always keeping the interest of health above all.

Dr Jose Parambil, Professor In charge presented the vote of thanks and concluded the session. Many top officials from IOCL have attended this learning webinar. During Q&A session, Vibhash has also given insights on entrepreneurships and start-ups. This virtual webinar was attended by students from all disciplines and backgrounds, it was an incredible and insightful webinar, and everyone has enjoyed throughout the interactive session.

13^th June 2020

Coming back from COVID: Learnings and Lessons for Employability and Entrepreneurship

Training and Placement Cell (TPC) and Entrepreneurship Cell of Indian Institute of Technology Patna organized a live webinar focusing on ‘Coming back from COVID-19: Learning and Lessons for Education and Entrepreneurship’ by Hon’ble Dr Anand Deshpande, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director for Persistent System, in line with ongoing weekend webinars by eminent personalities from Industry to share their journeys, knowledge and various opportunities to overcome challenges in these difficult times. This ensures that students remain informed, updated, and motivated during the unprecedented era of uncertainty and health crisis.

IIT Patna TPC Cell Officer Kripa Shankar Singh welcomed our distinguished guest speaker and set the agenda of the webinar. The session began with Dr Deshpande sharing his illustrious career and inspired the attendees with his encouraging outlook. He insisted that the students of this eminent institution should have a positive perspective on this pandemic, calling this as a short glitch in an overall long and acclaimed journey ahead. He also talked about how this crisis could be advantageous for many and how one from a technological background could help himself to learn, grow, and get the most out of it.

One of the other agenda which sir focused on was entrepreneurship and how one should approach startups to grow it into a successful corporation. He talked about two important things namely,

• Learning how to learn
• Networking

as the cornerstones of a triumphant entrepreneur. He said that being nimble, agile and brave enough to face failures are important aspects of any startups. He gave various examples from his own journey as well as from technological hubs such as silicon valley, to advise that failures should not be seen as something to be sad and sorry about, but should be learning points for better growth. He also named a few areas such as health systems and various supply chain management which could be the inception areas for various startups and budding businesses, other than technology. According to him, students should:

• Choosing a problem which can be solved and sold; which according to him is the most important aspect of a start-up venture
• Building a team with passionate people.
• Not to focus entirely on the monetary part
• Partnering with other start-ups (in case one doesn’t have the required background to start a venture)
• Think big: Great goals are achievable only if one thinks big.
• Learn how to learn: Best time to diversify one’s field.
• Be Persistent: Makes the difference between a winner and a loser

He said, “Start-ups are a journey rather than a destination & failures are an integral part of that journey”. Failure should be looked at as a learning experience. On his DeAsra foundation, he said that it is a way of giving back to the society and it has helped around 80,000 start-ups to stand on their feet.

Later on, when he was asked how he tackled and steered his company as a leader in the difficult time of 2008 Financial Recession, he replied that one should be humble enough to accept that such tortuous events have no right answers or correct response. He conveyed his belief that in such unprecedented times, ‘People don’t value transaction, but value relations’. He said he lived by the same code and this helped him in several difficult events and helped him build a giant of a corporation that Persistent system is today. Speaking on Persistent which started in 1990 and is now based in 18 different countries, he said it had a 3500 crore revenue in the previous financial year.

He answered several questions raised by panellists as well as the attendees, to make this an inspiring, engaging, and informative talk. Dr. Jose Parambil, PIC Training and Placement proposed vpte of thanks and concluded the session. Sudhir Yadav ( Btech Mechanical Engg), Shivam Singh(MSc) and Avinash Singh Chauhan ( M.Tech) students were moderators and Mohit Kishore ( BTech Cs) and Adarsh Chaudhary (BTech CS) were co-ordinators for the event. He was thanked by the panellists and the attendees were grateful for his insightful words. Lastly, he promised that he would visit IIT Patna and have an interactive conference with students and faculty once the pandemic is over.

31^st May, 2020

Technological Intervention will become the integral part of life post covid era

Training and Placement Cell of Indian Institute of Technology organised a live Webinar on “Sailing through Uncertainties: Impact on Employment & how to leverage current crisis to emerge as leaders” by Deepak Gupta,Senior Director & Head - HR at SS&C Technologies an alumnus of IIT Roorkee, in line with ongoing weekend webinar by eminent personality from Industry to share their knowledge and experiences to students of IIT Patna on how to remain motivated and committed to their goals while navigating this unprecedented crisis the world is experiencing in the form of COVID.

Kripa Shankar Singh, Training and Placement Officer of IIT Patna welcome the guest speaker and set the agenda of webinar. The session was very informative where Deepak Gupta spoke about the economical & psychological impact the of covid -19. He has discussed about new trends such as WFH and its scalability in Indian context, negative stories related with job cuts and salary deduction where people are panicked, yes situation is difficult but reality is quite different.

More jobs will be created and many companies are still hiring. He told us how more manufacturing units, technology and digitalization is advancing rapidly in India. Companies are attracted due to flexible labour law and land law.

Students got to learn how they should increase their network and connect with people and explore for the better understanding of trend and challenges.

He has given insights on becoming leader in their respective domain through this uncommon situation

• Adaptive in nature
• Be creative
• Integrate yourself
• Increase your eco-system through networking and learning
• Coming forward to set path for others to follow in uncertain conditions.

Also, the importance of Technology specifically Machine learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Bigdata was discussed in the webinar. He has also beautifully narrated and inspired the students with some examples like

• Innovation of Tesla Motor, Tesla is product, it’s a technology which disrupt the world in next 5-10 years
• Roti Maker, Roti Maker uses machine learning so each machine takes some time to make good bread; they are also connected to the internet for software upgrades.
• The origin (By Dan Brown), Whoever you are, whatever you believe, everything is about to change

Students from B.Tech . M.Tech and MSc disciplines have participated in this live webinar. Good numbers of relevant questions have been asked by the participants and guest has answered properly. Program was ended with thank you note. It was really an incredible and insightful webinar and everyone has enjoyed throughout the interactive session.

22^nd May 2020

Technology is not the panacea but an enabler through this crisis: Google Director during Virtual Webinar at IIT Patna

Training and Placement Cell, Indian Institute of Technology Patna in an attempt to provide its students with the best possible exposure and opportunities and to help them create a mark in the global world; organized a virtual live webinar by Mr. Kartik Taneja, Director Google Channel Sales in Middle East, Europe and Africa, in its ongoing series of learning webinars.

Having spent more than 20 years in the industry, Mr. Taneja is deeply passionate about technology and how it can improve our lives. Kripa Shankar Singh, Training and Placement Officer of IIT Patna said that Kartik Taneja has talked to the students of IIT Patna about Consumer Internet Trends in the Covid & Post Covid world, Emerging opportunities and challenges with examples. He has given insights on 6 emerging verticals post covid era which will open the doors of immense career opportunities:

• Acceleration of E Commerce
• Online Education & Learning will be next $ 100 Billion industry
• Data surveillance will the Next Normal
• News, Media & Events
• Online Health & Medicine will also be a $ 100 Billion Industry
• Acceleration of Govt Services- Online

In his interactive talk, he has discussed the several ideas and methodologies on accelerating E-commerce, delivery, logistics, Stay at Home Economy. He said E Commerce industry will see a growth of 25% to 30% across globe post covid era.

Online Education is what online search was in 2000. Evolving opportunities in Online Education including, online Tutorial, E testing, Vocational and Professional studies and skill development will the key area where we have opportunity.

Data surveillance will the be another hot growing sector where who collects, uses and control of data will create the jobs. Machines vs Humans, changeability and sharing of data with other sectors and states will be the part of this growing sector.

Online healthcare & medicine, which tend to be the next $100 billion industries, were encouraged. Telemedicine, health and wellness apps, digital health product such as smart thermometer and temperature sensors will on boom post covid, for example health care company, Teladoc has seen increased in appointment by 20,000 per day during this pandemic.

Online news, gaming, events, social media and their monumental increase in the past few years creates opportunities in content creation and distribution as well as in its moderation to stop fake and harmful parts.

Indian will accelerate to a billion Internet users up from 620 million now, we will see increased budget to support infrastructure, software and processes by 3 to 10 times, what we had spent earlier. Public Private partnership come to another height to create, manage and deliver government services. Particular focus was given during talk to the increasing number of internet users and the market in India, which open up multiple domains of innovation. He has given 3 important take away with students as:

• Think of yourself as a change agent
• Be a creative problem solver
• Help build a Scientific and Technology environment around you, use data and science

The webinar ended with an expression of sincere gratitude by Kripa Shankar Singh,TPO,IIT Patna to Mr. Taneja for his valuable insights about challenges and opportunities arises due to this covid -19 global crisis. TPC IIT Patna is engaging the students through influential industry leadership talks which encourage the young leaders to make a change in the society. Before concluding the webinar, students asked many questions related with challenges and opportunities for being a technocrats and Mr Taneja responded very well to everyone.

17^th May 2020

IIT Patna is active with innovative and proactive steps to make its students engage and aware through various activities, amid the current crisis due to Covid-19 pandemic. The Training and placement cell of Indian Institute of Technology, Patna is organising a series of learning webinar by esteemed corporate leaders of different domains.

In this category on this Sunday, T&P Cell has organised a very interesting virtual webinar by Varun Jain, Account director of LinkedIn corporation. LinkedIn is an American business and employment oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. LinkedIn hosts more than 675 million professional profiles across globe.

Theme of webinar was “Harness your personal brand using LinkedIn”. He has discussed about Best practices for professional branding and networking, Ways to use LinkedIn as a research tool, how to use LinkedIn to get hired, Tips to gain social proof for your skills and talent. Varun Jain also emphasized that post covid LinkedIn will play vital role in full time and interns hiring. in today’s scenario 9 out of 10 company recruiters use LinkedIn.

TPO, Kripa Shankar Singh said that the session was a profound insightful experience for the students. In this webinar students from various streams of B.Tech / M.Tech disciplines have participated and program witnesses a large numbers of questions from audience related with different aspects of LinkedIn before the session end. At last Mr Varun Said, LinkedIn is an investment, it takes time to give you good returns. Mr Kripa Shankar Singh presented thank you note and said in future we will have more such webinars for students.

10^th May 2020

Training and Placement Cell, Indian Institute of Technology Patna in an attempt to provide its students with the best possible exposure and opportunities and to help them create a mark in the global world; have started a series of learing weekend virtual webinars. On May 10th,2020, TPC presented Mr. Damodar Sahu, Digital Strategist, Manufacturing & Automotive Industries at Wipro, USA, interacted with the students on the topic “Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2020 and Beyond”. He interacted with the students about the emerging technologies such as IoT, AI, Industry 4.0, Blockchain & Service Transformation, and how these technologies can influence the world with real-world examples from the current pandemic situation.