Expressing joy at the start of the Conference Shri Modi pointed
out, “It’s heartening to see that in its 2
nd
edition the ICAI has
grown so big. 135 universities, institutions from 56 nations and
60 universities, institutions from 14 states are here today.” The
Chief Minister pointed out that the 21
st
century is the century of
knowledge and every week there unfolds new developments in
education and research. “Emergence of knowledge society has
become a reality,” he affirmed.
The Chief Minister pointed out that earlier the information
revolution and digital reach were limited to a certain segment
of society due to which a digital divide was built. He stressed on
the fact that if knowledge is co-created and co-authored it will
be available to the entire humanity to be used and developed.
“When the information age transforms into a knowledge age, we
can reap the benefits,” he stated.
ShriModi further stated that the themes for this august conference
are internationalization, research and skill development. Talking
about the rich history of this land in higher education the Chief
Minister said, “Before 2500 years ago India had a sophisticated
system of higher education. Nalanda, Taxila trained students
in various fields. Nalanda University drew scholars from China,
Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Turkey.”
He pointed that a true knowledge society ought to have competent
people who can innovate and create new concepts. Talking about
the initiatives of the Gujarat Government Shri Modi shared that
Gujarat is the first state to launch an Innovation Commission and
state had also launched iCreate. Shri Modi declared that the focus
is not on degrees but on employability and skill development. He
further shared that the Government is working closely with
industry on this issue. He talked about programmes like SCOPE
and eMPOWER that train youth in soft skills and IT.
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