The Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay will shortly launch a portal that allows students, tech enthusiasts and others to build online communities. These communities will let members discuss issues of common interest and build a repository of knowledge.

This is being taken up as part of the National Virtual Library mission that is being supported by the Union Ministry of Culture. “We are going to launch a beta version of the portal in the next few months and a final portal by the year end,” Professor Deepak B Phatak of IIT-B, told BusinessLine.

Phatak was is in Hyderabad on Monday to take part in the two-day Knowledge Management Summit 2017 being organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Talking to BusinessLine on the sidelines of the event, he said the automated online communities, backed by good Cloud support, will drive discussions on important issues.

“Depending on the topic, subject and interest, stakeholders from different fields can join the discussion. The system will recognise people with good rating . It will ask volunteers who have earned good ratings to drive the group. There can be several groups on diverse issues,” he said.

Earlier, addressing the inaugural function, he said the education system in the country is separated from skills and research, resulting in the absence of skills in the end products from colleges. That need to change and there is a need to marry academics with skills and research.

“The education system must encourage students to be curious. There should be anticipatory curiosity among students, promoting inquisitiveness. But, unfortunately, the focus has been on marks. Children are not able to articulate their mind,” he said.

Nasscom former Chairman and Cyient Executive Chairman BVR Mohan Reddy said it is important to bring in a culture of innovation in organisations, by incentivising new ideas and conducting hackathons.

Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman of CII National Committee on Knowledge Management, said technology will help in taking educational content to the hinterland.