A National Level Industry-Academia Interface on “Education 4.0 & Industry 4.0 -Opportunities and Challenges for Educational Institutions & Industries” was organized on 3rd December 2022 at St. Vincent Pallotti College of Engineering & Technology, Nagpur. The main objective was to define the Engineering Education 4.0 framework through Industry 4.0 to bridge the gap between the needs of industry and the skills of academic experts to enhance the employability. The event was attended by more than 300 delegates from industries and academia along with 1500 + students.

During the inaugural address, Chief Guest, Hon’ble. Shri Nitinji Gadkari shared his views on the importance of industrial development, need-based research & value based education as per industry 4.0 and its collaboration with the academicians to make future ready India. He shared that technical and research knowledge can be used to power our country and to make life sustainable for poor people.

He emphasized the youth to become job providers rather than job seekers. He also stressed the use of Green Hydrogen, e-vehicles and water conservation projects for sustainable development.

Mrs. Ambika Natarajan, Guest of Honor from HCL, Chennai spoke about the radical changes in wake of industry 4.0 and the need to education x.0 for making future techies. In his address guest of honor, Dr. Bhimaraya Metri, Director, IIM Nagpur raised his concerns on the need to build a strong industry connect and development of skills and competencies required for education 4.0.

After the inaugural function, Dr. Prashant Maheshwary, Dean, Science & Technology, RTMNU given keynote on Education 4.0, Mr. Shashikant Chaudhary, Co-founder, BabyVerse, given keynote on Industry 4.0, Ms. Bani Dhawan, Head of Education, South Asia, Google India shared her keynote on Education technologies and Mr. Prasad Pendharkar from TCS, Nagpur shared his keynote on cyber security & IOT 4.0.

After the keynote address, a panel discussion was organized on the theme where Dr. Keshav Tayade (Maha Metro), Dr. Rizwan Ahmed (Delaplex) and Mr. Ketan Paithankar (Knonverger.AI) as industry panelist shared their views to learn-unlearn-relearn for improving the skills set, design the curriculum as per the industry requirement and use of online platform in curriculum.

Dr. Unthwale (GHRCE, Nagpur), Dr. Tidke and Dr. Kothari (IIIT, Nagpur) shared their views as academic panelist on transformation of teachers as per industry 4.0 and implementation of professional competencies in campus.

Mrs. Ambika Natarajan concluded the session with the note on industry academia collaboration for the betterment of the society through technological innovations.