Born multi-taskers, women in the 21st century can be found everywhere! Be it the corporate world or politics; they never fail to bring something different to the table and groom organizations to emerge as vibrant and successful entities. Like any other industry, the education sector also has some iconic women leaders and administrators who are spearheading the education sector to a path of progression and possibilities. Thereby, shining a bright spotlight on one such personality – Susmita Sarkar, as the Chairperson of Dream Institute of Technology, is that today’s woman leader who is constantly working towards doing better for her institution, and the society at large, preaching a sense of keeping learning at the forefront which is deep rooted with ethics and values.
Visionary Edupreneur in the Making
Coming from a family of philanthropic Industrialists, Susmita Sarkar is an Engineer with B.Tech and M.Tech degrees, who went ahead towards fulfilling the dream of her late father of establishing an educational institute of great repute. Having started her journey in the same trust under whose umbrella Dream Institute of Technology carefully rests, as the Registrar, she had to understand and manage multiple roles. Also, in this position she got various opportunities to learn and adapt to the policies and the regulatory norms and requirements and at the same time preparing herself for the constantly changing and evolving nature of education.
Post her father’s untimely demise last year, she had to take up the responsibility of the entire organization, and develop strong leadership skills. Moreover, as a woman entrepreneur and educational leader at the same time, she heads DIT as the leader in-charge catering to all the issues the onboard faculty, staff and students face, taking the institution towards greater heights. Also, being in the post as the Chairperson, she is one of the important decision makers of the organization, and thus, her responsibilities go beyond just administration or policy making, but taking care of day to day functioning of the institute. “As a part of my life, I take an opportunity to visit my institute daily to consider my tasks that need to be considered by me for speedy disposal, and I always take my turn and the initiative to keep our institution ahead in all fronts and as guidelines laid by the concerned competent bodies”, stated Susmita Sarkar, talking about how she goes out of her way to fulfill her duties towards DIT and ensure only good learning happens at the tech hub.
Building youth for the future
Continuing to talk about how all her contributions towards the educational fellowship is the work she’s carried out to better DIT, Susmita Sarkar shared – “I make sure that the quality of the institution is maintained rather than growing day by day”. Adding to her above statement, she stated – “In the pre pandemic era, I used to concentrate on upgrading my laboratories with modern equipment, so that the students can get more practical exposure to those with hands-on experience, but now, my emphasis rests on upgrading both offline and online tools, so that, the institute is prepared for the worse – anytime and anywhere”. In fact, under her capable leadership itself DIT procured dedicated LMS and the entire team of reputed faculties have upgraded themselves as skilled members who can deliver via online platforms as well. So through the conversation with Ms. Sarkar we learnt that, with time, both Susmita Sarkar and DIT have grown mature and moved in-sync with the world and their competitors.
Furthermore, being an avid learner and adapter she took the period of lockdown and the pandemic as a learning experience, focusing on real issues and ensuring those changes happen at DIT that were needed the most. At the same time, she also tried her best to understand the role of changing education scenarios, about the institute and the education parameters that were taking a new paradigm shift from physical to virtual. For the next four to five months it was that period where Susmita Sarkar led DIT towards positive change, understanding the situation slowly, emerging victorious, in the end.
Lastly, always striving to outperform on a daily basis and preaching the motto of developing at the round, Susmita Sarkar personally feels that the pandemic has changed her as a person, reminding her that nothing is permanent and change is inevitable. Considering that the pandemic has taught her one notion, that only the fittest survive, she believes it’s high time that we adapt to the laws of nature, that whoever is much more adaptive will only survive on this planet and she strongly feels that she is prepared, like never before. Also, with a matured mindset at her disposal, and with all her anxieties all gone, she greets the positive effects the pandemic got with it with a smile, slowly ebbing towards Women Empowerment in India, giving back to society what it truly deserves through quality education.
