Gandhinagar : In a unique initiative, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) is hosting 40 meritorious engineering undergraduates spread across various engineering disciplines, constituting 28 boys and 12 girls, from Mehsana’s Gujarat Power Engineering and Research Institute (GPERI). The main aim of this unique five-day residential training initiative is to provide non-IIT students an exposure beyond their technical subjects, which may be transformational.

The residential training workshop is being conducted from December 16 to 20, 2019. It is planned in such a way to introduce and immerse these students with ideas and activities other than their usual subjects of study, such as Origami, practical way of learning science subjects through interactive sessions with Centre for Creative Learning and Design & Innovation Centre, a session with Writing Studio on developing right communication skills and their importance, an insightful session on LGBTQ awareness, effective note making, an interesting astronomy tour, and a meaningful session on mental health. Projects designed by these students will also be put on display in IITGN campus.

Describing the purpose behind starting this unique initiative, Prof Sudhir K Jain, Director, IIT Gandhinagar said, “IIT Gandhinagar wishes to impact the larger educational landscape beyond its own campus. One way to do this is to provide a transformational experience to students of other colleges through a variety of initiatives. These include non-degree programmes (where students from other colleges enrol for a semester with us as full-time students), summer research internships (where students from other colleges spend eight to ten weeks at IITGN to carry out research under our faculty), Finding the Leader in You (FLY programme wherein the students are trained for leadership), and the one week programmes (where the students spend a week at the campus). We are very pleased to be able to provide this opportunity to the 40 students of GPERI Mehsana.”