Inventing our Future
The Professor Back in my undergraduate college as a student of Manufacturing Science & Engineering, it was charting an unknown territory. In 1996, except one IIT, no other engineering college or, university had any such stream of studies that aimed to elevate and specialise components of traditional Mechanical Engineering. The courses were heavy on design, mathematics, manufacturing science from prehistoric metallurgy to robotics, computer aided design and manufacturing. It was a tough experiment for the professor who founded it as there weren’t many professors, teaching staff or fully developed laboratories that could reliably deliver the course or, the vision. I belonged to the first batch of students post the launch of this branch of engineering studies. The several moving parts that fuelled uncertainty about the future were calmly sedated by the founding professor. He was in his mid-40s, wearing multiple hats from course design, administration to developing...