'Visitor's Conference' to kick off at Rashtrapati Bhavan today

New Delhi: The first ever 'Visitors Conference' to be held at Rashtrapati Bhavan will commence on Wednesday with an interactive session between industry and academia, exchange of 44 memorandums of understanding (MoUs) and lectures by eminent personalities.

CII president Sumit Mazumder, CII vice-president Shobana Kamineni, JNU vice-chancellor Prof. SK Sopory, IIT-Bombay director Prof. Devang V. Khakhar, and NITK-Surathkal director Dr. Swapan Bhattacharya will also be participating in the interactive session.

Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, Bharat Ratna Prof. CNR Rao and India's foremost agriculture scientist Prof. M.S. Swaminathan will delivered lectures.

As many as 44 MoUs for cooperation will be exchanged between industry and academia in the presence of President Pranab Mukherjee.

In the past three years, the President had convened annual conferences of Central Universities, NITs, IITs, and other institutions, which have now been merged into a single three-day 'Visitor's Conference' this year to create synergy amongst all central institutions of higher learning.

The agenda for the three-day conference includes - improving the quality of higher education in institutions to bring them at par with the top institutions of the world; capacity development of faculty; engagement of institutes of higher learning with community and society for sustainable and inclusive development; and promotion of gender equity and cultural inclusion through higher education.