The Hindu : Front Page : World youth satellite will be in orbit by 2007, says Kalam

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 03, 2005

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World youth satellite will be in orbit by 2007, says Kalam

Special Correspondent

He lists areas for entrepreneurship and jobs they can create

CHENNAI: India will put into orbit a dedicated youth satellite by 2007 to enable the youngsters of the world to connect to one other, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam said.

The proposal for the satellite had come about in Moscow recently, where he had discussed the matter with the Rector of the University of Moscow. Subsequently, the Indian government decided to go ahead with the project and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured him he would "push [for] it,'' Mr.Kalam said in his special address on `Technical Education and National Development' to the heads of affiliated technical institutions at Anna University here on Friday.

Inviting the university students to "play a role [in the youth satellite],'' the President said it would focus exclusivelyon youth affairs and enable youth of one country to link up with those in others for deliberating upon issues of mutual interest.

Adding value to education

Earlier, in his speech on, "Adding value to education through entrepreneurship," Mr.Kalam listed eight potential areas for entrepreneurship and the number of jobs they were likely to create: biofuels (12 million), wasteland development (15 million), water harvesting/recycling (6 million), bamboo mission (8.6 million), fly ash (0.5 million), textiles (12 million), health care (1.8 million), village knowledge centres (1 million) and tourism (20 million), altogether 76 million new jobs, mostly in the non-IT sector. All the areas needed sufficient technical expertise across a wide spectrum.

Universities should include a six-month orientation course for students to set up their own enterprises and create wealth. The banking system should create adequate venture capital to facilitate young entrepreneurs. He had held talks with the Finance Ministry on this, Mr. Kalam said.

Knowledge grid

The President mooted the creation of a "knowledge grid" that would link up academic institutions, universities and research institutions with industries and research and development organisations.

The connectivity should be established through a high bandwidth gigabit network, using satellite links for difficult regions and Wi-Max for last mile access. Anna University should be networked with all 250 affiliated colleges through the knowledge grid with high bandwidth fibre broadband, the President said.

Speaking at length on his early days in the university, he recalled that in the 1950's he learnt the rudiments of aerospace engineering in a shed, which served as a classroom.

Luxurious buildings and excellent facilities alone would not be sufficient for knowledge creation. Only knowledge makers (i.e., teachers) could do so, he said.

The role of a technical academy would be to reflect, research and strategise the working of network institutions and identify gaps in institutional mechanisms to support inventors and innovators, apart from periodic benchmarking exercises, to ensure that the inventive edge of technical education programmes did not get blunted, Governor Surjit Singh Barnala said.

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