Reinvent to cater to social media driven society, engineers told

CHENNAI: “Engineers will have to reinvent themselves to cater to the needs of our social media driven society to stay relevant,” said ‘Ma Foi’ K Pandiarajan, minister for Tamil official language and Tamil culture while speaking at a recent conclave organised by Rajalakshmi Engineering College.
Pandiarajan emphasized the need of entrepreneurial skills to land jobs in this disruptive environment, which has left 40 per cent of last year’s engineering graduates jobless while speaking at the conclave titled ‘How to gain from India’s demographic dividend’.

The conclave held on occasion of the College’s 20th anniversary was attended by G K Vasan, former Union minister for shipping and T Manikandan, Director (Engineering), Amazon Development Centre India.

G K Vasan called for the need for independent certification for certain skillsets and observed the importance of imparting training by repeated actions. He also urged academic and political class to come to terms with the ever-changing business, technological environment and accordingly provide education to the millennials.

“History will tell tales of how we refused to address needs of the generation to whom we are handing over this challenging world to, if we don’t change our approach to education,” he said. T Manikandan revealed how the tech industry requires people only with a “deep skill set and not just any coder”.

Shedding light on mentality of the hirers, Manikandan told the students about preference given to candidates who can “resolve conflicts” and do so with confidence. All three speakers encouraged students to come up with new ideas and pointed out how investors are hungry for ideas. “As many as 86 batchmates invested in my company and that is how I started Ma Foi Consultants,” said K Pandiarajan.

The Chairperson of the institution, Thangam Meganathan, pointed out to the gathered students her own example of how she began the college with her husband from humble beginnings 20 years ago. The 25,000-square foot REC Tech lounge was inaugurated by Vasan to mark the twentieth anniversary of the college.

REC Tech lounge

The inaugurated REC Tech lounge consists of a technology incubation centre,  skills centre and a centralised computer centre equipped with 850 latest computers and laptops