On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the 56th convocation ceremony of Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B). Modi’s speech highlighted the achievements of IITs and how it transformed the technological outlook in India over the years.

“The nation is proud of the IITs, and what IIT graduates have achieved. The success of the IITs led to the creation of several engineering colleges around the country. They were inspired by the IITs, and this led to India becoming one of the world’s largest pools of technical manpower. The IITs have built Brand India globally.” said Modi, on this occasion.

He praised the role of IITs in bringing new technology such as 5G, artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, big data analysis and machine learning to reality and how important it will stand in India’s vision of Smart Manufacturing and Smart Cities in the future.

In his speech, he also mentioned how these technical institutions were at the forefront of the best startups in India and their focus on innovation being the need of the hour. “Innovation is the buzzword of the 21st century. Any society that does not innovate will stagnate. That India emerging as a hub for start-ups shows that the thrust for innovation is very much there. We must build on this further and make India the most attractive destination for innovation and enterprise.

On the other hand, Modi stressed on the skills most graduates lack once they complete their courses. He insisted that this skill gap can only be bridged with quality at all levels of education, and urged professionals in the industry to help academics in improving quality.

His complete speech could be found here, (at Narendra Modi’s official twitter account):

Delighted to address the convocation ceremony at IIT-B. Here is my speech.` https://t.co/KNj8u9AfNz

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 11, 2018

We had reported last month of a development by IIT Hyderabad, where Hyderabad City Police would be using an artificial intelligence-based programme developed by the premier institute to automatically detect motorcyclists who are driving without helmets in surveillance videos.

In another development, with an aim to establish a cloud research lab on artificial intelligence and machine learning, IIT-BHU and Amazon Internet Services Private Limited (AISPL) signed a memorandum of understanding to develop cloud-ready job skills by providing access to the AWS Educate program.