"We conceive AI and widespread access to information as powerful tools": Anant National University Provost
You’ve had a distinguished career as an architect, urbanist, and scholar. How do you plan to leverage this experience in your new role as Provost at Anant National University?
Anant National University is a diverse and dynamic institution in the making where creative ideas evolve into purposeful action and where students are trained through practical, hands-on, experiential learning to lead meaningful change in our rapidly changing world.
My topmost priority is to strengthen the university’s overall research environment to further enhance students’ learning experience while fuelling innovation across disciplines and cultivating Anant’s leadership in the design fields. Enhanced research focus will also ensure that the Anant community contributes meaningfully to global intellectual conversations on design, sustainability and emerging technologies.
Equally important, a deeper, more engaged research culture will enable us to develop locally pertinent learning materials, a glaring gap in the Indian education system. Unfortunately, design disciplines have long relied on foreign textbooks, and at Anant, we are committed to the motto ‘आत्मनिर्भर भारत’ by developing well-researched, contextualised textbooks, ensuring that our students engage with pertinent materials rooted in our local realities, regional diversities and national aspirations.
Another key focus area is encouraging entrepreneurship among our students and further strengthening incubation efforts campus-wide. Designers and architects can (and should) be job creators and not job seekers. Institutionalised support and one-on-one mentorship will empower our students to develop new ventures, helping the country’s industries and communities alike.
Anant’s mission is focused on addressing global challenges through design education. How do you intend to help the university further this mission while preparing students to be leaders and solutionaries?
Design, by its very nature, is a human-driven, intentional activity, ie, humans have always used design to address pressing, real-world issues. In other words, if there is no purpose, then we don’t design. Think about how humans designed various tools and techniques to conceive and carry out planned agriculture and industrialisation over hundreds of years. Some people confuse design with decoration, but these two are very different things.
Today, changing climate and evolving technology, especially AI and easily accessible information, are two of the most pressing challenges we face. Anant is committed to preparing students to address these global challenges through meaningful education, equipping them to become thoughtful and successful professionals leading the field in productive ways.
At Anant, we conceive AI and widespread access to information as powerful tools that we can harness thoughtfully to improve the quality of life for everyone via better design. However, much like a sharp knife, they can be put to socially good or totally disastrous ends, depending on how they are used. At Anant, we emphasise training ethically sound students who will employ these powerful tools responsibly and impactfully.
Changing climate, another defining challenge of our time, is an area where Anant has already taken significant strides. Our BTech in Climate Change programme, a first-of-its-kind undergraduate degree in the entire country, equips students with skills, knowledge and expertise to create technology-driven, smart solutions to better face climate change problems both at the local and global levels. We will continue to move forward even more forcefully and ambitiously in this area.
