BITS Pilani

Centre for Work Integrated Learning & Development

Introduction

Preparing students for the world of work and enabling them to remain relevant are two key objectives of work integrated learning model of education. Integrating authentic work experience with formal learning as an intentional part of the curriculum through a structured program is the means of achieving it. Research and practice quite clearly demonstrate that such an integration doesn’t happen by merely placing the students in the workplace but through a structured intervention using authentic industry-scale infrastructure, problems drawn from such a workplace and guided by subject matter experts trained in such technologies.

The proposed Center for Work Integrated Learning & Development aims at providing such an opportunity to learners to not only meet their course requirements but also develop innovative solutions to industry problems.

Need

Work Integration for WILP students: Working professionals undertaking continuing education should have access to contemporary infrastructure and expert guidance in order to gain applied technology skills to remain relevant in their chosen profession. Such a facility and expertise may not always be available to them in their place of work. Hence, the educational institutions operating in continuing education need to build such opportunities and make them available to their students as a part of the instruction.

Industry Problem-solving: Industries adopting emerging technologies require support of educational institutions in developing new methods and solutions for their vested problems. Institutions offering programs in inter-disciplinary/ multi-disciplinary fields are well placed to cater to this need.

Experiential learning: While the remote and virtual labs can generally meet the experiential learning needs of the courses, some of the learning experiences are best offered onsite and, in a place easily accessible to the students. This is also an expectation from the regulators.

Practice for campus students: The skill-gap between what the industry requires and the students possess is a matter of fact. Students with skills in emerging technologies stand a better chance to get placed even for internship. Hence, HEIs should build such skills as a part of their curriculum or at least as a learning opportunity for their students and other aspirants.

Scale & Access: In order to meet the scale and access it is essential to create such facilities in the industry hubs, which can also serve as training centers for the working professionals of the collaborating partners. This can further strengthen the industry-university linkage.

Outcomes

1. Develop innovative solutions to industry problems.

2. Create and test new ideas.

3. Build essential workplace skills in problem-solving and critical thinking.

4. Perform structured lab exercises related to specific courses / programs.

Scope

The emerging technologies considered based on our expertise and need are:

Software-defined Vehicles

1. - Control systems
  - Electric & hybrid powertrain
  - Automotive security
  - Automotive diagnostics
  - Intelligent systems for autonomous driving

Smart Manufacturing

1. - Sensors & data acquisition
  - Digital twin
  - Robotics
  - Process optimization
  - Immersive technologies

Additive Manufacturing

Alternate materials
Topology optimization
Manufacturing process design
Mass production

Applied AI-ML

- - - - Education technologies
      - Sports
      - Oil & Gas
      - Health

Approach

The idea is to create the centers in our off-campus locations (Chennai, Bangalore, Pune and Delhi NCR) based on the WILP student population and industry clusters.
The technology specialization will be based on the relevance with the industry clusters in those regions.
Faculty with the required expertise will be assigned to manage the labs.
Experiments for the centers and the equipment configurations will be curated in the centralized WILP laboratories located in Hyderabad campus.
The dissertation projects of WILP students will be leveraged to put the facility to use and make connections with the industry.
Campus students will be encouraged to join the WILP dissertation projects to gain access to industry problem solving.
Additionally, consultancy projects from collaborating partners will be obtained to develop solutions leveraging the facility.
Immersion sessions will be organized periodically to provide hands-on experience to the WILP students on equipment that cannot be offered through remote/ virtual labs.
The facility will be used to offer short term training programs to the collaborating partners and interested students from other institutions.
Based on the maturity, some of the labs may eventually spring to become a research facility.

About BITS Pilani About BITS Pilani WILP

An institution deemed to be a University estd. vide Sec.3 of the UGC Act, 1956 under notification # F.12-23/63.U-2 of Jun 18,1964