Working towards achieving a common goal of excellence through hard work and dedication

Prof. Ajoy Kumar Ray is an academician with a plethora of experience in the field of education. He has served at numerous prestigious institutions and has joined JIS Institute of Advanced Studies and Research, Kolkata as the Director of the institution. Here is what he has to say in his interview.

Tell us about your experience in the education industry and what makes it the best industry to work in?

“It is essential to develop a workforce to align the ideology of current industrial trends” 

Over the last 40 years of my academic tenure, I have witnessed how science and technological education has evolved. It is pivotal to initiate a significant number of quality programs at Masters and PhD levels, focusing on developing an appropriate workforce. Also, aligning the skill sets as per the industry standard and translating the research-based education for our society is another important aspect. At this new-born institute, we offer high quality industry-oriented post-graduate and translational research programs in some of the most relevant areas of science and technology with a commitment to nurturing young minds for industry 4.0. 

What is your philosophy of leadership? How would you describe your leadership style?

An ambient environment is must for a prosperous growth of the faculty and students 

A leader is as good as his/her team. The team members should be capable of manifesting their experience and knowledge to set the bricks along the path to achieve the vision. In such a case, it no longer remains a dream of the leader. Instead, it becomes the vision of each team member who puts their devotion and expertise. To achieve the goal, I always aim to offer my team members a collaborative and enjoyable environment where they can work together with full freedom and take the onus of JISIASR, considering it a single-family. Also, I ensure that this family includes the staff and faculty members and all the Masters and PhD students. I believe that our strong repertoire of bright faculty members and motivated Masters and PhD students will eminently place our institute in India's technology education map shortly. The dream will come true via active support and collaboration with the prominent industries and academic institutions across the globe.

“During this pandemic situation, the most difficult challenge is to keep all our students, staff, and faculty members motivated and involved in finding innovative solutions to combat the crisis.”

What are the USPs of your course that you have designed ?

“The course curricula for Masters and research studies have been developed in close consultation”

Our course is aligned with industry standards to bring out the best among the students and develop their skills to solve real-life problems with an industry-oriented aptitude. Some of the salient points to be considered as USP are:

• Fully-structured job oriented courses to provide knowledge as per the industry standard.
• State-of-the-art laboratory facilities with modern-age systems and equipment at per with the industry level configurations.
• Emphasizing more on hands-on based sessions in every discipline to develop practical skills that will benefit the students in both industrial and research perspectives.
• Highly qualified faculty members, graduated and experienced from IITs, ISI, industries and other eminent institutions in India and across the globe, viz. Germany, Australia, South Korea and the USA.
• Opportunity to be trained from eminent professionals on the emerging areas from the perspective of industry-oriented skills and projects.
• Collaboration with leading industries and academic institutes across the globe.
• Internship and project opportunities in prominent industries and academia to work in close collaboration starting from the carrier.
• Ensuring good quality research publications for the Masters students through their participation in ongoing in-house research projects (funded by Wellcome Trust or Govt. of India agencies like DBT, DST, ICMR, etc.) side-by-side their regular course programs, thereby offering them a comprehensive research exposure that they could expect in the R&D labs of the industries or in the academic institutions.
• Provision of scholarships to all meritorious and motivated students under financial stress.

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What are the top qualities that a student must possess?

“An ideal student must possess inquisitiveness to learn and form a trajectory towards success”

In this era, when it’s becoming quite challenging for each of us to prove in his/her career path, I can suggest some of the qualities that one should own to grow further from a global perspective:

• Sound domain knowledge and in-depth understanding of the problems and associated approaches to solve that.
• Hands-on knowledge encapsulating various case studies related to real-life problems.
• Perseverance and ability to think out-of-the-box are also major concerns which can keep one in the top-tier.
• Efficient representation of the work in both writing and presentation is also paramount to achieve progress in the respective field.
• Very importantly, the focus, the motivation, and the love for the subject of interest, which will allow the student to enjoy the work (s)he is doing.

“An ideal environment for students should be to get an open sky to blossom their learning capabilities and fly with their knowledge and skills. Faculty members should get enough opportunity and scope to implement their ideas and further develop their skills to reach the highest altitude in their respective fields.”

How do you look to build a healthy relationship with the students?

“We create a path for our students for them to achieve an all-round development in all domains”

The new-age engineers are the flag bearers of future generations, who, I think, have lots of potential to shape the future world in diversified domains. As a teacher, our responsibility lies in guiding this massive force to a proper path and bringing out the best in them. With such a vision, we perpetuate a healthy relationship between students and teaching fraternity through sharing the lectures with passion. We encourage their active association in defining solutions, followed by implementations through different practical experiments that further sharpen their skills and thinking capabilities.

On the other hand, it helps them work in a group with teachers and freely share their opinions on different aspects of life. Definitely, we welcome their ideas in various institutional events and act as well as guide them accordingly. As we belong to this JISIASR family, we think it is our responsibility to keep things organized and focused on different dimensions of our activities. 

How do you look at the growth of students through placement opportunities available? 

“We leave no stones unturned in nurturing our students for them to be the leaders of tomorrow”

We always believe that our graduates will become job providers. We also understand that not every student will choose to be an entrepreneur or start-up professional. Therefore, we explore the possibilities to place our students in academics and related industries. As Dr. Louis Pasteur once said, “Fortune favors the prepared minds,” our students should not miss any opportunity to be placed or employed that might appear to them shortly due to a lack of preparation. Our highly talented young faculty members and the experienced personnel from different sectors of this society, as adjunct professors, keep no stones unturned to provide the best training to aspiring graduates.

Click here JIS Institute of Advanced Studies & Research Faculty

What goals do you have in your mind for your institute for the next few years?

“Our university will be the epicentre of excellence in the coming future”

There are miles to cover in our future endeavours, which include: 

• To create analytical minds and embed intellectual curiosity amongst the students by imparting education, focusing on interdisciplinary knowledge and life skills.
• To cultivate amongst the academic community a commitment towards advancement of knowledge by creating a collaborative environment open to the free exchange of ideas, where research, creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship can flourish.
• To generate an in-house incubation center in guidance and association with leading industries and government funding, it will allow the faculty members and students with innovative ideas to develop their start-up ventures.
• To prepare JISIASR Kolkata as national hubs in our program areas for both training and research this will enable us to work in consortia with all top-ranked national labs in relevant areas.