Engineers Day 2013 Theme Frugal Engineering at Sangam University Bhilwara
Online, September 18, 2013 (Newswire.com) - India celebrates Engineers Day on 15th September every year as a mark of respect to Bharat Ratna Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya who was born this day in 1860 and died on April 14, 1962.
The term 'Frugal Engineering' was coined by Carlos Ghosn, current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Renault and also Chairman of the Renault-Nissan Alliance Board. It is the process of reducing the complexity and cost of goods or services without sacrificing quality, and also making it affordable to all. Frugal engineering will be of great relevance to developing countries, as a flexible approach that perceives resource constraints as a growth opportunity.
The Engineers Day celebrations at Sangam University took off with a brief profile of Sir Visvesvaraya presented by Miss Sukriti who also anchored the entire proceedings. Miss Srishti Gupta gave an overview of Jugaad the Indianized version of Frugal Engineering while Miss Deeksha Agarwal highlighted the theme with several examples such as Tata Nano. The Frugal aspects of Cloud Computing were presented by Miss Chunoti Nahar and that of Aakash Tablet by Miss Harshita.
Mr Amandeep with an animation explained Frugal concepts in Circular Piston Engine while Miss Pooja & Abhishek spoke at length on Jaipur Foot. The celebrations which included innovative collages on the theme Frugal Engineering were organized and coordinated by Miss Priyanka Rathore, Miss Mahima Chajer, Miss Priyanka Sharma, Miss Shalu Vijayvergia, Miss Neha Agarwal, Mr Zahid Khan and Mr Siddharth. Faculty and students from ITM and Sangam University Bhilwara enthusiastically participated in the proceedings.
On this occasion, regarding the relevance of frugal engineering for India today where the masses will benefit from products or services that have a very small dose of engineering, well known alumnus of BITS Pilani, Mr KS Viswanathan Vice President (Industry Initiatives) NASSCOM shared the following thoughts with the faculty and students of Sangam University Bhilwara.
"The increasing sophistication and maturity of the Engineering and R&D services industry in India has brought about a significant change in customer perception of service providers. Customers have started to view service providers as strategic partners owing to greater confidence in their ER&D capabilities. Companies are now providing services from basic process support to high value-added services such as full product development. It is heartening to see some of the product innovation being done by Indian E&D companies for global clients and some of the engagement has now gone beyond cost arbitrage to strategic engagement. This clearly indicates that frugal engineering has become increasingly relevant for countries like India. Although frugal engineering has been practiced in India for a long time, in the last few years, it has expanded from sporadic instances into a national movement. India is fast becoming the global head quarters for frugal innovation and frugal engineering as Indians are sensitive to a low-resource environment. In fact, this is time for countries like India to encourage investments in value creation in product development as well as create an inclusive business model including attracting best of global and local talent to experience game changing transformations in the product engineering business."
Prof BR Natarajan President - Vice Chancellor Sangam University gave interesting incidents from Sir Visvesvaraya's life and summarized the proceedings saying that Frugal Engineering is not being Miser but being Wiser.