Tomorrow’s innovations and research are going to be in the cross disciplinary areas and most of the research, innovations and products that are going to come out of engineering are going to be bio-inspired remarked Prof. Anil D.Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), New Delhi in his inaugural address at the three-day International Conference on “Advances in Pharmaceutical and Health Sciences (ICAPHS - 2020) organised by NGSM Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, a constituent college of Nitte(Deemed to be University), Mangalore. He further added, with new technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine learning coming to the fore, it has become mandatory to embed technology into pharmacy, medical, and health sciences education as much as the need to embed biology and biological science in technology education. He said that while our education system has offered CEOs to Google, Microsoft, IBM how could industries in India, not find the right fit of students. Hence there is a need to build an ecosystem of innovation and every institution must have innovation cell he urged.
Delivering the keynote address, Dr. B.Suresh, President, Pharmacy Council of India said, that the advances in the pharmaceutical sciences is so rapid and dynamic that the students must continually improve their knowledge, expertise, and skill sets to take up the challenges and be able to find solutions for problems. He said that the pharmaceutical industry will undergo major changes in the near future.
The shift from ‘Pills to Cells’ is the new era theme and stem cell therapy; wearable devices, 3-D printed organs are the medical solutions of the future. Due to the outbreak of Corona virus in China which is the major supplier of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients to India, the pharmaceutical production in India has been adversely impacted and there is a likelihood of prices to increase by 40%. But he said that India has the capacity to deal with the situation since it was Indian company that offered the solution to the dreaded Ebola and Zika virus, which wreaked havoc in the African continent.
Echoing the recommendations of the Kasturi Rangan committee on the New Education Policy, Sri. N. Vinaya Hegde, Chancellor, Nitte(deemed to be University) said that there was an urgent need for the education policy makers to have a relook into the education delivery system. He said that integrating pragmatic and hands-on education system and providing holistic and multi-disciplinary exposure to students is the best way to prepare them to use their full human potential to address current and future issues.
Prof. Dr. Satheesh Kumar Bhandary Vice Chancellor, Nitte(Deemed to be University) delivered the welcome address. CNRS Director - Indian Embassy in France Prof. Srini V. Kaveri, Nitte(Deemed to be University) Pro-chancellor Prof. Dr.Shantaram Shetty, Pro-Chancellor Mr. Vishal Hegde, Pro Vice Chancellor Prof.Dr. M.S.Moodithaya, Registrar Dr. Alka Kulkarni were the other dignitaries present. Dr.C.S.Shastry, Principal introduced the dignitaries and Dr.M.Vijay Kumar, Organising Secretary-ICAPHS 2020 delivered the vote of thanks.
