Union Minister – The New Indian Express

Union Minister – The New Indian Express

Of Express News Service

ROURKELA: The 19th convocation ceremony of National Institute of Technology- Rourkela (NIT-R) on Saturday was marked by digital distribution of degrees to over 1,500 students using blockchain technology. NIT-R was the first among NITs and second after IIT-Kanpur in the country to adopt the technology for awarding degrees.

Union Minister for Education, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Dharmendra Pradhan awarded the digital degrees to 1,555 students at the ceremony held in hybrid mode here. “I want to see NIT-R become a hub for technology. The institute needs to proactively plan how the entire district can be connected to blockchain, households are mapped, people get benefits given by the government and help to increase skills and employment opportunities among youth, Pradhan said in his speech.

He also lauded the institute’s adoption of the convocation dress in Sambalpuri cloth material which ended the practice of wearing caps and gowns. Elaborating on the National Education Policy (NEP), Pradhan said, “It is just not a document. It is a philosophy to decolonize our mindset. Let’s take a pledge for the next 25 years to make this institute an interdisciplinary and multivisionary institute.”

As NEP recommends learning in local languages, research and basic studies should also be done in local languages ​​and NIT Rourkela must come up with new ideas and innovation to improve the translation technology, Pradhan admonished.

The institute awarded the digital degrees in assistance with IIT-Kanpur’s C3i Innovation Hub, under the auspices of the National Blockchain Project mooted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The digital degrees are stored in a digital wallet in a secure and tamper-proof environment for sharing by students with their potential employers for instant verification, eliminating the legacy laborious manual verification by third parties that practice consuming weeks together.

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The Institute’s Chairman of the Board (BOG) and Director Prof K Umamaheshwar Rao elaborated on the Institute’s emergence as a premier technical institute and its growing leadership position in sponsored research and industrial consultancy programmes.

Sundargarh Member of Parliament and Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defense Chairman Jual Oram expressed hope that more foreign students join NIT-R by availing various schemes of the central government. Chairman of Sundargarh District Planning Committee Sarada Prasad Nayak was also present.

The shining stars

1555 degrees awarded
859 students
608 new graduates
88 doctoral degrees

Prizes awarded

Six institute gold medals
Pratyusha Padhi – Best candidate in BTech and BArch
Nurul Hasan – Best Post Graduate in MTech
Anurag Mishra – Best postgraduate in dual degree in BTech and MTech
Raj Sekhar – Best Post Graduate with Integrated MSc Degree
Liza Samal – Best postgraduate in MSc and MA
Anupama Sahoo – Best Post Graduate in MBA
11 distinguished alumni awards

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