Author: SSSIHL

A visit to Sri Sathya Sai Airport was arranged for the M.Sc. in Physics and M.Tech. in Optoelectronics & Communications students and faculty under the guidance and permission of the Geological Survey of India (GSI) to learn about survey aircrafts ZK-XLE, ZK-XLK & ZK-FNZ and briefing of the aero geophysical survey equipment.

Students and faculty members examined firsthand the survey aircrafts that were stationed in Puttaparthi. This included many sensors and data collection equipment on board. The survey team explained the working of the sensors and the method of geophysical survey which they undertook.

#SSSIHLPhysics #SSSIHL

The students and staff of the Anantapur Campus hostel have adopted a leper colony situated in the outskirts of the town of Anantapur since 1986, with the objective of making the inmates of the colony as self-sufficient as possible.

Project Love Stream is a long-standing example of service in action and how a little love and care has the power to create long lasting benefits to generations of families. It has helped transform the lives of twenty-five socially marginalized families.

The colony that consisted of 10-12 huts in 1986 now has twenty neat little houses. The creatively raised capital has funded water pumps, stationery items, food supplies and even fifty trees so that they can sell their own fruits and earn an income. As a result, almost every family now has its own bank account.

Practicing human values, bhajan singing, educating the inhabitants in various ways- these are some of the ways that the warden and students have taken time out to help the lepers with.

The long-term objective is to make the families as self-sufficient as possible.

As part of the project, each year, the students of the Campus made a variety of handicrafts like cards, bookmarks, rakhis and friendship bands. These are then sold to the inmates of the hostel and the amount thus raised is utilized to buy provisions for the residents of the leper colony on a monthly basis. They also help with their basic requirements like provision of water connections, bathroom doors and fodder for the cows maintained by them.

Each academic year, the staff and students do service activities such as distributing blankets to the residents, getting them provisions, etc.

The project has had a long-lasting impact on generations of students for over thirty years now.

#SSSIHLIntegralEducation #SSSIHL

A panel discussion, Business Excellence, was organized for II MBA students in February, 2020. The panelists focused on the idea of business excellence and ways to plan, deploy and sustain excellence in Business. Discussions centered on the use of Excellence frameworks, particularly the Malcolm Baldrige and EFQM frameworks.

These framework assist organizations in becoming more more competitive by aligning their plans, processes, decisions, people, actions, and results. The latest modifications to these globally adopted frameworks and the key challenges in carrying out an assessment of a business organization were discussed. The sessions ended with a fruitful question and answer session.

The panelists included:
Govindarajan Jagannathan, Chief Executive Officer at Transconn International, LLC, Krishnan Parayil, Principal Counsellor, Business Excellence at Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), and Commander Sreenivasan, a veteran Navy officer with a distinguished record of service to the nation across various fields.

#SSSIHLManagementCommerce #SSSIHL

What happens when you bring together brilliant authors, thinkers, writers, journalists, leaders, students, nerds, aunties and enthusiasts together for a couple of days?

You get the Times Litfest, Bengaluru, an event that the postgraduate students, research scholars and the faculty members of the Dept. of English, SSSIHL, attended in Bangalore.

The theme of the 6th Times Litfest (8-9 Feb 2020) was ‘Atheetha’, which translates to ‘beyond’. With over 70 speakers (authors, poets, filmmakers, musicians and the like), a host of book launches, children’s competitions, literary sessions and more; students, scholars and faculty had the opportunity to soak in plenty of ideas, thoughts and opinions.

Eclectic discussions and talks ranged from the growing importance of keeping politics away from scholarship (by Jairam Ramesh) to mythology (for example Kavitha Kane’s narration on the unsung heroes of Ramayana and Mahabharata). The two-day fest truly broadened the literary perspectives of the participants engaging them in thought-provoking new ideologies and concepts in greater magnitudes.

A student aptly summed up her experience: “The Times litfest was a marketplace of ideas. It helped to nurture the seed sown of new perspectives and ideas on many topics and assisted budding writers with several tangents of outlooks, which is the ultimate success of the event.”

“Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body,” as Joseph Addison, an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician, once said.

#SSSIHL #SSSIHLEnglishLanguageLiterature #timeslitfest

The Dept. of Physics, SSSIHL organized a workshop, Virtual Labs, in collaboration with the Virtual Labs Outreach Team, led by Ms. D V N Mrudhvika, the Outreach Coordinator and Project engineer, IIIT Hyderabad, on 6 February 2020.

The workshop explored possibilities of how SSSIHL faculty can become content generators for virtual lab experiments. Nineteen faculty members from SSSIHL Science departments across campuses participated.

Virtual Labs is an initiative of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), under the National Mission on Education through Information and Communications Technology (ICT) which aims to provide remote-access to labs in various disciplines of Science and Engineering. These virtual labs will cater to students at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral research level. The technology will eliminate constraints on time and geographical distances and bring shared access (to students across the country) to otherwise expensive Learning Management Systems.

Prof. Govind Rao, Director, Center for Advanced Sensor Technology (CAST) and Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA delivered a guest lecture on Disruptive Innovations to Lower Healthcare Costs at SSSIHL on 30 Jan 2020. The lecture was attended by students and faculty of the University, as well as doctors from Sri Sathya Sai Higher Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Prasanthigram.

Prof. Rao highlighted the growing cost of healthcare in the United States, costing close to $4 Trillion per annum while 71% of world population lives on a $10 per capita per day income. Under these circumstances, where medicare is beyond the reach of the masses, the Center for Advanced Center Technology (CAST) has developed next generation bio-manufacturing technology with the ability to manufacture protein-based therapeutics at the point-of-care. Under Prof. Rao’s able guidance, cell-free systems have been used to produce lifesaving biologics in under 8 hours. His talk centered around the application of non-invasive sensors, minimizing pain and removing infection risks especially for vulnerable infants in neonatal care.

He also spoke about the development of low-cost cardboard incubators for new born babies that is currently in clinical trials in India. Overall, he highlighted the application of sensor technology in reducing healthcare costs and reducing disparity by making disruptive and innovative low-cost devices for use in low resource settings.

They young students and researchers greatly benefitted from the talk and had a chance to interact with him after the lecture.

https://cast.umbc.edu/people/govind/
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03455-x

#SSSIHLResearch #SSSIHL

By the Grace and Blessings of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba and the active support of the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust, starting early 2019, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning Alumni have initiated several Seva activities in and around Prasanthi Nilayam. The frequency of the activities has increased from two weekends a month to every weekend starting November 2019.

This has allowed hundreds of alumni (over the past year) to come to Prasanthi Nilayam and participate in these service activities whenever their schedule allows.

The activities — in the areas of Sanitation, Maintenance, Medical and Grama Seva (village service) — are conducted in close collaborations with officials in the ashram and the hospitals.

In addition to their regular ashram seva activities, on 25 and 26 January 2020, 45 members, including alumni and doctors, participated in service that included health camps for two villages near Penukonda.

#SSSIHL #SSSIHLAlumni #SSSIHLIntegralEducation

Getting Ready for Professional Life in Organisations

In late January 2020, Anahat Organisation Development Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. conducted a workshop for the students of the final year M.B.A. programme (separate sessions for women and men students) to help them recognize the options they have in their work lives and then guide them make the right choice.

The expert trainers, Sri C S Mahesh and Ms. Janaki Venkat, Founders of Anahat, and Ms. Sivakami Suryanarayan, Principal Secretary of Anahat, made all students take the internationally recognized Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a psychometric test that helps identify types of personalities and find ways to use personality differences constructively to improve personal effectiveness, team performance and manage work relationships better.

Students learnt a lot about their own personalities and strengths, and how to confidently use that knowledge to develop a career profile that matches their personality and interest.

The trainers concluded by making the students realize the importance of developing abilities in their non-preferred areas while maintaining their own preferred state. This helps in respecting the contribution of team members and considering their opinions with an understanding that each personality is valuable.

#SSSIHLManagementCommerce #SSSIHL