PALS (PAN IIT Alumni Leadership Series), an educational initiative of Alumni of all IITs, organized a conclave at IIT Madras which aimed at tackling challenge of workforce skill gap in Industry 4.0. The theme of the Conclave was ‘Conquering Industry 4.0’ and it brings together digital and physical worlds and digitization of manufacturing processes, that will throw up challenges both Industry and Academia are to be prepared. PALS aim to be in a position to facilitate measures to bridge this gap. Mohan Narayanan, Chairperson, PALS, says, “We have designed the Conclave and its theme to bring together Industry and Academia for their inputs to redesign and recreate PALS solution offering in our constant endeavour to improve engineering education.”

Guests of Honour of the Conclave were B. Muthuraman(Tata Steel), Ananth Krishnan (TCS), Dr. Anand Samuel(VIT). They spoke

about the Industry and Academia perspective on ‘Conquering Industry 4.0’ and the session was further moderated by Prof. R. Nagarajan (IIT Madras). Series of activities were planned by PALS which includes residential workshops, internship and Summer Projects, Faculty Development programs, Industry visits for colleges, summits on educational excellence and intellectual property. Participants from 40 partner colleges and 70 industries took part in the Conclave which included Chairman, Principles, decision makers from PALS Partner Colleges and CEO’s and decision makers from industry across sectors.

Commenting on the conclave, Ananth Krishnan, CTO, TCS, says, “Technology can never be stable, it will keep changing, and it is through us that it needs to be utilized in the manner that satisfies our need. The computing industry has been on the path to double its efficiency, in this consumeristic world. Most of us in this techno-savvy world are not easily able to cope with the new ideas; hence technology has to think of simpler ways to reach in the era of 4.0.”

In its seventh year, PALS started as a series of motivational lectures by IIT Alumni and gradually offerings have grown and the objective was to enhance the quality of engineering education and make the students industry ready. The engineering colleges obtained several benefits from PALS over the years and it was done by tapping the vast pool of expertise available within the IIT alumni community across the corporate, academic and entrepreneurial domains.

Speaking about the importance of the conclave, Mohan Narayanan, Chairperson, PALS, said, “We have designed the Conclave and its theme to bring together Industry and Academia for their inputs to redesign and recreate PALS solution offering in our constant endeavour to improve engineering education.”