Retd scientists from DRDO, ISRO to mentor VTU pupils

BENGALURU: Retired scientists and engineers from ISRO and DRDO will now mentor students and the teaching faculty of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Belagavi. The Bengaluru chapter of National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has offered its services to VTU and two rounds of meetings have been held in this regard.

Dr V K Atre, chairman of NAE’s Bengaluru chapter said, “We will offer our expertise and mentor VTU students. It is mainly aimed at helping teachers and  students get exposure beyond their curriculum and classroom learning. A calendar of events will be readied within a month.” Atre has served as head of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). “Our experts will help teachers in writing research proposals and conduct workshops, special lectures and outreach programmes. We will also provide service to colleges which don’t have experts in particular subjects,” he added.

PES University and M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology are already taking help of NAE experts to gain knowledge and practical experience.In the first phase, the mentoring project will cover only Bengaluru-based colleges affiliated to VTU. “There are over 110 engineering colleges in Bengaluru and as 50 per cent of our experts are retired and don’t prefer to travel much. So, we will be starting the mentoring programme with city colleges only,” Dr Atre informed.

“Services of experts will be offered for free. They did not expect anything in return for sharing their expertise with us. We will, however, be taking care of the transportation expenses of scientists and experts,” said VTU V-C Dr  Karisiddappa.