Innovation, agility, and global impact at the core, ETEducation
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn,” futurist Alvin Toffler once warned. India’s higher education system is now confronting this reality at scale. With NEP 2020 accelerating multidisciplinary reform, AI personalisation reshaping learner expectations, and India advancing toward a $5 trillion knowledge economy, the nation stands at a pivotal moment. Digital adoption is soaring, research ecosystems are expanding, and global competitiveness is becoming the new benchmark. The real challenge—and opportunity—is to redesign learning for a generation that demands flexibility, relevance, ethical leadership, and global readiness.In this exclusive #InspirationinEducation interview series episode, Professor Suman Chakraborty, Director, IIT Kharagpur, unpacks this transformation with uncommon clarity and foresight. He reflects on the future of rigour, the irreplaceable role of human mentorship in an AI-driven world, the urgency of innovative faculty cultures, and the shift from transactional collaboration to mission-driven partnerships. His perspective reframes institutions not as degree providers but as living laboratories of nation-building. With insights rooted in purpose and possibility, Professor Chakraborty offers a blueprint for the next chapter of Indian higher education—one where technology serves humanity, and knowledge evolves into wisdom.1. India’s higher education landscape is transforming rapidly—driven by NEP 2020, digitalisation, and global competitiveness. What key shifts will define the next decade?
The next decade of Indian higher education will be defined not by expansion, but by elevation — from quantity to quality, from teaching to mentoring, from degrees to discovery. NEP 2020 has given us the grammar; now we must write the poetry — an ecosystem that blends the freedom of liberal education with the precision of engineering. The future is about modular, multidisciplinary, and mission-driven learning, where universities become living laboratories for nation building, not just degree factories. The real shift ahead is towards ecosystemic excellence, where technology, society, and humanity converge to create meaningful learning journeys for every student.
2. With AI and digital tools reshaping education, how can educators ensure that technology amplifies—not replaces—the human connection?
AI should be the assistant, not the authority. The teacher’s role is evolving, from being the “sage on the stage” to the architect of curiosity. Technology can deliver content, but only humans can deliver context. It is empathy, storytelling, and mentorship that turn information into wisdom. For me, the most meaningful future of learning is a “human-in-the-loop” model, where AI personalises learning journeys while educators shape reflection, ethics, and techno-social awareness. Put simply: AI may help students think faster, but only a human mentor can help them understand what truly matters, why it matters, and how to navigate an ocean of information that is abundant, yet often distracting or misleading.
3. Today’s learners seek flexibility, relevance, and purpose. How can Indian institutions balance rigour with creativity and ethical leadership?
The future belongs to those who can connect dots across disciplines — engineers who can empathize, doctors who can code, and managers who can imagine. For me, true rigour is not about restrictions but reflection — the ability to approach problems with depth, creativity, and ethical clarity. Classrooms must evolve into incubators of real-world thinking, where conceptual understanding grows out of meaningful challenges, not mechanical routines. Ultimately, students should not only learn to solve equations but also learn to question assumptions. That, in my view, is the real future of rigour — competence strengthened by character, and knowledge guided by purpose.
4. Strong institutions are built on empowered educators. What steps are being taken at IIT Kharagpur to build faculty capacity and innovation culture?
We are reinventing the faculty journey from “career” to crusade.
Our focus is threefold: research leadership, pedagogical innovation, and industry/ entrepreneurial immersion, in addition to Campus and Community development.
We are creating Faculty Innovation Challenge Grants to support translational research, promoting sabbaticals-in-industry/ startup to bridge the lab–market gap, and enabling continuous digital upskilling in frontier technologies.
Faculty are no longer just disseminators of knowledge — they are co-creators of futures. When teachers thrive as innovators, institutions thrive as ecosystems.
5. How can higher education institutions strengthen their engagement with industry, startups, and global partners for greater impact?
The time for transactional MoUs is over — we need transformational missions.
True collaboration happens when industry and academia co-own problems, co-design solutions, and co-share risks. I strongly believe in building innovation clusters that bring together startups, enterprises, researchers, and young learners so that a student project can evolve into a venture, and an industrial challenge can become a research frontier. Today, impact can no longer be measured by publications alone — it must be measured by the problems we solve, the lives we touch, and the ecosystems we help strengthen.
6. How is IIT Kharagpur expanding its global presence through alliances and cross-border learning?
IIT Kharagpur is not just exporting talent — we’re exporting ideas, innovations, and inspiration.
Our vision of “Global IIT KGP” rests on three pillars:
(i) strategic research alliances with leading universities and technology hubs;
(ii) cross-border classrooms enabling virtual and physical mobility; and
(iii) joint innovation accelerators tackling global grand challenges — from climate resilience to digital health.
We are strategizing building Global IIT KGP Hubs in Europe, North America, and Asia — transforming collaboration into co-creation. Our goal: to make “Made in IIT KGP” synonymous with “Made for the World.”
7. What are the biggest challenges and opportunities ahead for Indian higher education? How can IIT Kharagpur lead this transformation?
The biggest challenge is not technology, but transformation itself — moving from compliance to creativity, from teaching outcomes to learning outcomes.
The opportunity is historic: India can become the world’s education innovation laboratory — young, digital, and globally connected. We are engineering not just future technologies, but future mindsets — agile, ethical, and globally responsible. The next revolution in education will not happen in classrooms — it will happen because of classrooms like ours.
At IIT Kharagpur, our students are stepping into a world where India stands tall—confidently advancing toward the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047. By 2026–27, our nation is poised to become a $5 trillion economy. Today, India’s GDP has already crossed $3.7 trillion; exports have nearly doubled since 2013; and foreign direct investment has surged to $80 billion. Transformative national initiatives are revolutionizing rural infrastructure and the skilling ecosystem. India now ranks among the world’s top in several frontiers of technology. These frontiers demand not only the ingenuity of our engineers but also the integrity of their ethics and the depth of their empathy—to design Make-in-India solutions that address humanity’s most pressing challenges.
Let me be unequivocal: the world does not need mere technocrats. It needs humans who can both think and feel—who can use algorithms but are not governed by them. The future will belong to those who blend emotional intelligence with technical excellence, innovation with compassion, and courage with conscience. Our graduates will be tested in ways that extend far beyond competence. In an ever-evolving global landscape, their morality, ethics, and integrity will often face trials that challenge conviction. They must learn to be fearless in thought yet kind in action—to carry the brilliance of intellect with the warmth of humanity. They need to learn to lead not from the top, but from the front. And always remember: the true greatness of their work will never be measured by what it earns—but by what it enables.
In alignment with the National Education Policy 2020, IIT Kharagpur is at the forefront of shaping Education 5.0 — a transformative vision of learning that is interdisciplinary, immersive, and inclusive. It envisions a future where knowledge meets action, where traditional wisdom converges with artificial intelligence, and where education seamlessly intertwines with well-being, ethics, and lifelong learning.
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