Prof. Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar at ICFAI’s 13th Convocation

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 “If you want to be relevant in the fast changing world, and have access to the new opportunities, you should learn constantly, be prepared to take risks in life, and learn from failures to grow further, said Prof. Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, Chairman of the University Grants Commission. He was addressing the students who have graduated from The ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education at Hyderabad, at the institute’s thirteenth convocation. He told the students that as they are graduating from the University, they are stepping into a non-ideal world, which has both challenges and opportunities. These challenges range from unstable economic systems, climate change to gender discrimination. At the same time there are several opportunities presented as India has become the fifth largest economy in the world, and the third largest ecosystem for startups.

Prof Jagadesh Kumar said the higher education system should be ready to take advantage of these opportunities by scaling up the quality of education. The National Education Policy 2020 sets direction to do so by providing personalized, individualized and leaning outcome based education, where students can excel in multi-disciplinary education. He said that the Higher Education Institutions need to invest in academic and research excellence, develop systems that foster freedom to carry outstanding research that meets the local and national needs of people. The institutions need to create an environment to provide maximum opportunities to students and faculty. He asked the teachers to adapt to new teaching and assessment methods to be relevant to the rapidly changing education landscape.

 The chancellor of the University, Dr.Rangarajan, who presided over the convocation, said that higher education is important to build  a nation. He said, “in today’s world, competition in any field is competition in knowledge.” Dr.Ranjarajan said that though we have progressed a lot in education, there is still a need to strengthen higher education by reforming it in three dimensions – access, equity, and quality. Access will improve the enrolment rate, equity gives benefit of higher education to under-privileged communities, and quality needs to be promoted. 

Dr.Rajgarajan then spoke about India’s economic journey and challenges in becoming a developed economy by 2047. The Indian economy needs to achieve a growth rate of 7% for the next two decades, for which Gross Fixed Capital Formation rates needs to grow to 32% of GDP from 29% of GDP at present. The ICOR needs to be maintained between 4 and 5. He called for absorbing new technologies, building proper investment climate, and reducing employment elasticity for achieving growth. He said one of the main challenges that the fifth largest economy faced was in relation to per capita income. 

Prof L S Ganesh, Vice Chancellor, ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education, presented a report on the progress made by the University during the year. He highlighted the University’s endeavors towards promoting quality higher education, particularly the implementation of the New Education policy with Academic bank of credit, multiple entry and exit systems, and imparting multidisciplinary education. He pointed out several programs that the University undertook for the all-round improvement of students, through community engagement and social responsibility programs. Prof. Ganesh said that the university promotes Indian Knowledge Systems, and its rich values and ethics in particular for all-round development of students. Addressing the students, he asked them to develop skills and attitude, compassion and concern for others, and urged them to play a crucial role in transformation of the society.

Prominent mathematician and statistician Prof C R Rao  and  Sri Sreedhara Panicker Somanath, Chairman of ISRO were conferred with doctorate honoris causa by ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education.  Prof Somnath said that the honor recognizes the work done by thousands scientists and engineers at ISRO. He congratulated the University for spreading knowledge system of the India among the students. 

During the convocation, 2,488 students received their degrees.  8 students were awarded their Ph.D. degrees and 1,142 were given MBA degrees along with 723 BBA degrees. In the other streams, 3 LLM, 178 BBA-LLB (Hons), 52 BA-LLB (Hons), and 311 B.Tech degrees were awarded. 11 Executive MBA, 

15 MMS (Distance) and 4 Online MBA degrees were also awarded. 7 B.Arch, 5 B.Sc and 29 BA (Economics) degrees were awarded. 

N J Yasaswy – Best Teacher Awards were given to the Best teachers in Business School, Science & Technology School, and Law School. Dr.Vikas Gautam from the Business School, Dr. Sandeep Kumar Panda from the Science & Technology School, and Mr. Dilip Sharma of the Law School received the awards for Best Teacher.

Medals were awarded to students for academic excellence and all-around excellence. The gold medal for the first rank holder for Academic Excellence in MBA went to Udayanandhini K. The student also won the Faiyaz Ahmed Khan Memorial Gold Medal’ as the First Rank holder in the Finance stream of the MBA program. The silver medal was awarded to Ambika Singh. The ‘Saurabh Sharma Memorial Gold Medal’ for being the First Rank holder in the Marketing stream of the MBA program was awarded to Sagarika Jena. The Manish Reddy Raavi award for the Best Student in Finance was given to Varun Dhapade. Parul Chauhan won the TheGovindShanbogue Award given to topper in HRM stream. Geeta won the best PhD student award. 

In the BBA Stream, Shubhangi Gupta won gold medal for academic excellence, and AeshnaGoel won the silver medal. The gold and silver medals in the BA Economics stream were awarded to TummaluruHemasree and TanushreeChowdary. AishwaryaVucha from BBA-LLB won a gold medal for academic excellence, Amrita Memorial Gold Medal, and Wordict-IP Gold Medal. OisiniPoddar won the silver medal for academic excellence in BBA LLB. M Sai Deekshitha won Gold Medal in BA-LLB stream, along with the Best Student award. Pariyal Gupta won second prize for academic excellence. Dheepika R won two medals, NellutlaVenkata Krishna Rao Memorial Gold Medaland award for third place in all round excellence. RuqiaBanu won ABR Memorial Gold Medal and Subham Kumar Dalara won Best student award at ICFAI law school.

In IBS the three best student awards were given to Yash R Devnani, Kanishq Dubey, and ShwethaVarshini R.  The Best students at IcfaiTech are AaryanNakhatBattulaHarshini, and Aditi Mutha.  In B.Tech the best students were Vaka Sri Kavya and AaryanNakhat. C Shubham Naidu and DudipalaSaikiran Reddy were adjudged the best students in B.Sc and B.Arch courses.