Higher Education Department, IIT to launch J&K Wide start up competition: Kansal

JAMMU : 14 business plans have been shortlisted in a pitch deck competition conducted by IIT Jammu. These would be evaluated to yield the final list of projects. Besides, the entire process would be enlarged and a J&K wide start up contest would be organized jointly by the Higher Education Department and the IIT Jammu. This was revealed at a meeting held at IIT in order to shortlist the best business plans which were received in the first round of the pitch deck competition organized by IIT Jammu.

The Principal Secretary, Higher Education, Rohit Kansal, while complimenting the efforts of the institute in organizing the competition also assured that the Higher Education department would support and facilitate a larger, J&K wide version of the event which would be organized shortly by the IIT. The Director IIT, Dr Manoj Singh Gaur assured that the IIT would support budding entrepreneurs as well various degree colleges of J&K on a hub and spoke model.

Earlier, the faculty and students of the IIT gave a presentation on the in-house Learning Management System (LMS) developed by the students of this Institute. The model, developed as a start up by the students has unique and desirable features such as student feedback, customised assignments submission facility, attendance checking, assessment, administrative monitoring and automatic grading available in it.

The presenters also divulged that the platform has different interfaces for students and teachers modelled as per the requirements of each. It was revealed that quiz sessions and automatic marking of the same could also be accomplished using this system besides being safe, trustworthy and effective tool with features appreciated by both the students and teachers as well. It was also said that the platform could well be useful even after the start of offline classes for better management and monitoring purpose.

The Principal Secretary exhorted the Degree Colleges to expeditiously introduce appropriate systems in their colleges, more so in the light of the prevailing COVID situation when most classes were being held online. It may be mentioned that currently, only a few colleges are making use of the LMS as an effective tool. While the Islamia College, Srinagar which is an autonomous institute has an effective automated system, many other colleges are working towards developing similar LMS and ERP solutions for better monitoring, accountability and improving the quality of performance.

The meeting was attended by Director of the IIT, DrManoj Singh Gaur, Sanjay Dahiya, Registrar, IIT Jammu; Prof Yasmeen Ashai, Director Colleges; Principals of various degree colleges besides faculty and students of the IIT.