On October 8, 2020 International Business Machines (IBM) India joined hands with the Department of Science and Technology (DST) to expand the scope of two DST initiatives Vigyan Jyoti, Engage with Science (Vigyan Prasar).
The initiatives aim to promote STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) learning among students, especially girl students to inspire them to pursue careers in STEM.
Key Points of Collaboration:
i.It aims to build a strong STEM ecosystem to nurture critical thinking, problem-solving, and next Generation Innovations through Inspire Awards – MANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspirations and Knowledge). Inspire Awards-MANAK is a program to build one million ideas rooted in science from school students.
ii.DST and IBM India will integrate, and develop Science & Technology (S&T) in the education ecosystem through short term courses, workshops, mentoring and Online Science content communication for teachers and students in India.
Vigyan Jyoti Programme:
i.Vigyan Jyoti Programme was launched to inspire girl students to pursue higher education and career in STEM fields.
ii.The program provides scholarship, field visit to scientific institutions, science camps, lecturers from eminent women scientists and career counselling.
iii.It aims to create a level-playing field for meritorious girls from grades 9 to 12 to pursue careers in STEM.
iv.The partnership with IBM India will strengthen these activities and will be extended to more schools in future.
v.It was launched in 2019 by DST and is currently implemented by Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) in 58 districts. The main focus is to increase the proportion of girl students enrolled in Engineering and Technology to around one-third of the total.
Vigyan Prasar Programme:
i.Vigyan Prasar (Engage with Science) is a technology-driven interactivity platform which is built on top of India Science Over-The-Top (OTT) platform.
ii.It was introduced to encourage and inspire high school students to pursue S&T as a career.
iii.As part of the collaboration, IBM India will run daily activities of the program which includes student workshops, seminars, to use its expertise to monitor students.
iv.It will encourage students to interact, participate and use digital tools such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Language (ML) components to understand Cloud, Big Data.
Recent Related News:
i.May 04, 2020, According to a report by NSTMIS, India ranks 3rd globally in the scientific publication as National Science Foundation (NSF) database.
ii.June 12, 2020, In accordance with the Nature Index 2020 ratings, 3 autonomous institutions of the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India ranked among top 30 Indian Institutes.
About Ministry of Science & Technology:
Department of Science & Technology (DST) is a department under the Ministry of Science & Technology.
Union Minister – Harsh Vardhan
Headquarters – New Delhi
