We’ll make Gujarat Technological University a hub of R&D: Prof Aggarwal

Prof Akshai Aggarwal took over as vice-chancellor of Gujarat Technological University on Tuesday.

Coming to Ahmedabad after teaching for 10 years at University of Windsor, Canada, is like a homecoming for Prof Aggarwal.

Earlier, he had worked for 10 years as professor and head of department of computer science at Rollwala computer centre of Gujarat University, before going abroad.

After taking charge on Tuesday as GTU V-C, Prof Aggarwal cleared the clouds about his appointment being a political one.

Replying to a question from mediapersons, Prof Aggarwal said: “I had read in a newspaper that my grandfather had some connection with RSS, but the fact is that my grandfather had never moved out of our village and my father was the first person to become a professor from the village.

I knew many political leaders from both the parties when I was here. I am not closely connected with RSS and not part of its core team. My name might be associated because of someone having the same name might have any connections with the organisation.”

Discussing his future ideas for GTU, Prof. Aggarwal said, “Our vision is to make GTU a hub of research and development in technology.

First of all we will need to put processes and procedures in place, as everybody knows that Rome was not built in a day.”

However, he added, “But the situation doesn’t seem that problematic as there are 383 institutes affiliated with the university and there are thousands of teachers.

So, if they devote even one hour per day for research, at the end of year there will be a significant outcome. The problem in India is that our teachers are not confident enough, it is not that we don’t have competence.”

He further said, “There is not a single university from India in the list of top 100 universities in the world, where as China has two, Japan has six, Singapore has two, Hong Kong has three, Taiwan has one and Korea has two universities in this list. I have prepared a 10-page document about my ideas for making GTU — a world class centre in education and innovation that I will be discussing with all the stock holders of GTU.

We want to be a centre for excellence, not a mediocre university as mediocre institute is a consumer of money and resources.”

Admitting that GTU doesn’t have infrastructure and manpower for his ideas Prof Aggarwal said, “We don’t have infrastructure, that is true, we will be working aggressively to deal with the issue and we need best teachers also, so getting excellent teachers will be our focus. In India, we have never aimed at attracting the best teachers.”