Adds Dr. Lovneesh Chanana article

_posts/2017-01-20-career-series-lovneesh-chanana.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Watch Out! Career Series : Dr. Lovneesh Chanana"
+image: lovneesh.jpg
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: career 
+---
+
+_An engineer himself, Dr. Chanana serves as a government advisor on e-governance, business development, consulting and capacity building. Having worked with giants in the industry including the likes of IBM and SAP, he expounds on how potential collaborations of industry and academia can offer a goldmine of research opportunities for engineering grads._
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+
+**In common parlance, can you explain to us what e-governance is and how it influences our lives?**
+
+Dr. Chanana - Technology offers you the opportunity to change processes and reach out to people, which was never feasible before. It offers a radical opportunity for transformation. Application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to the whole process of government service delivery is called e-governance.
+
+**How did e-governance suddenly become an area of academic and practitioner interest?**
+
+Dr. Chanana -There is huge scope for improvement in efficiency in all the sectors of service. We have different types of service techniques - Government to Citizen (G to C), Government to Business (G to B), Government to Government (G to G), like in the case of a passport application, and Government to employee (G to E). These services are innumerable and they tend to cater the needs of countless people. This makes the entire procedure of providing services to the last man standing really complex. The technology offers a huge potential in making all of these complex procedures easier. This is why this area came under exploration.
+
+**How can e-governance be of interest to students?**
+
+Dr. Chanana - Look at all the services that the government of India is providing. You can use aadhar card for innumerable procedures. One can get their passport in 10 days, one can avail LPG subsidy, and what not. But look at the back end of it all. We have to cater to a population of more than 90 crore people. Think of the amount of data analysis required, the database system’s capacity and complexity, the level of difficulties in ensuring speedy services with such loads of data. It offers immense work opportunities for a student interested in IT.
+
+**What is your take on the role of industries in pushing academia towards research?**
+
+Dr. Chanana - The industry has to deal with real life issues every single day. These issues are of huge vitality to the industry’s progress, and with which the country’s progress is attached. If the industries are to allot such issues in the form of projects directly to students it’ll be of immense help to the students because it’ll help them develop a practical sense out of the theoretical knowledge that they are already exposed to.
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+**In USA, companies tend to allot projects to students via professors. If these projects prove successful then many-a-times they are taken up by the students as their PhD programs with funding given by the companies. Why don’t we get to hear of such opportunities in India?**
+
+Dr. Chanana - Well, the thing is the initiatives are already in full swing. The current procedure is to establish centers of excellence inside the institute and provide them an issue to work on. The institute carries out the research work and then reverts with all their efforts established into a prototype. This prototype is then taken up by the industry and used for further establishments. IIT Madras for instance has shown really good output.
+
+**What is the industry’s stand on the current education system offering enough in terms of practical exposure to students?**
+ 
+Dr. Chanana - We expect that the people that we hire, when they come to us and we discuss with them the issues pertaining to IT and other fields of computer science, they understand what we are saying. Now if we are to argue with someone who has never had an experience with IT, and all he knows is how to code, then that person is not a good fit. We have to impose restrictions. The issue is people still think of technology as specialization. But technology is no more a specialization. It is a commodity. It is taken for granted. And thus people don’t realize that no matter what field you are in you can always mix up non-core areas and pursue them full time. I myself am a Production and Industrial engineer, but I work for SAP, an IT company.
+
+
+**What is your message to the students of IITR?**
+
+Dr. Chanana - Take pride in yourself and be proud of your capabilities. Don’t be in a hurry. Think of this as a career for a lifetime, not a single job. In industry the golden rule is that there’ll always be at least one person who earns a salary higher than you. The moment you start comparing, your relationship with your peer group gets strained and your performance is affected.
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+_<b>The article features in our Autumn’16 print issue. The issue’s Cover Story delves into the roadblocks to having a truly meritocratic election at IITR and while the two Big Stories analyse IITR’s security and expound on the limited academic flexibility offered at Roorkee. To read our previous issues visit: [https://issuu.com/wona-iitr](https://issuu.com/wona-iitr)</b>_
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