Changes in Dr. Chanana article

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

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-_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._
+_An engineer himself, Dr. Chanana serves as a government advisor on e-governance, business process reengineering, 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 opportunities for engineering grads._
 
 
 **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.
+Dr. Chanana – Simply stated, e-governance can be described as use of information and communication technologies to deliver government services with a view to enhance efficiency, effectiveness and transparency. The end goal of such online service delivery to improve government-citizen interactions leading to more participative governance. In terms of influence on a citizen’s life, e-governance application offer huge transformational potential for an inclusive development. Take the example of passports – from a 45 days issuance cycle, it has been brought down to a 3-4 days. You can track the status anytime. Similarly, a farmer in rural India can have instant access to soil data, expertise on improving yield in his field and mandi rates etc. The potential is huge. Mygov is another classical example of providing a platform for inclusive citizen participation. And the recent development on demonetization coupled with the push to digital payments has provided the much desired impetus towards incentivisation of e-services. 
 
 **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.
+Dr. Chanana –There are two three reasons for the sudden increase in interest level of both academia and practitioners. One, the holistic packaging of initiatives by the current Government in terms of well-defined programs such as “Digital India’, ‘Smart Cities’, ‘Make in India’ etc. This has provided the required direction and unified objective oriented push to digital agenda. Second, the fast paced developments in technology coupled with affordable acquisition and usage models such as cloud have opened up a canvas of new form of applications which could lead to transformed government processes. The third area that is more of an offshoot of the first that I mentioned above is the unsaid competitive environment that has been created among state governments and even central Ministries. Given the high level of visibility and potential impact of IT interventions in Government from social, economic and political aspects, all governments are taking steps to ensure that they are not left behind. So to summarize, the three factors for e-governance to become an area of increased interest levels are (a) the programmatic approach and the new models for management of these programs (b) the rapid advances in technology specifically for government services and (c) the socio-technical approaches required to leapfrog in this areas.
 
 **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.
+Dr. Chanana – When it comes to students, I feel that there can be three broad areas: a career in e-governance; entrepreneurship; and research. This is besides their normal expectations as citizens. From a career perspective, e-governance offers huge opportunities both in technology as well as management space. The sheer size and complexity of e-governance projects (e.g. rail reservations, income tax etc.) offer great learning potential for both technology and management oriented minds. Consulting in e-governance is another career option. The world of tech startups and creation of productized solutions for e-gov is another area that may be of interest. Students willing to take up research can do so in a variety of areas in e-gov e.g. mobility, cyber security, digital payments etc. 
 
 **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.
+Dr. Chanana – I won’t say that one stakeholder group pushes other to do something. It is always a collaborative effort. Industry academia collaboration in creating an environment of actionable research is a much talked about area (though I am not sure about the actual level of its success). The contribution from industry can come in a variety of forms including identification of real life problem statements, joint projects, curriculum development etc. Joint training, management development programs and capacity building is another area of common interest. Knowledge sharing on success and failures of research projects could be another area for collaboration.
 
 **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.
+Dr. Chanana – If one observes closely, some form of this exists in our system too. Take the example of numerous centers of excellence set up jointly by industry and institutes. These centers do work on creating prototypes which can be taken up for rapid development and deployment by industry. One may argue on the qualitative success of such models but intent and plan of execution do exist.
 
 **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.
+Dr. Chanana – One has to be mindful that in academia, the priority is to ensure that students get an effective conceptual learning which can be supplemented by industry experiences from a practical exposure standpoint. This can be achieved by industry involvement in curriculum design so that the inclusion of relevant concepts which are close to industry expectations can be achieved. Also, getting industry professionals as faculty may help both sides. Though, I must say, it sounds easier than it actually is. 
 
 
 **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.
+Dr. Chanana – Take pride in yourself and be proud of your capabilities. Don’t be in a hurry. Think of your long term career and not the job alone. Focus on acquiring technical and soft skills in the first few years and the paths for your professional journey will automatically open up. And one last thing – never forget your institute, your teachers and mentors. 
 
 
 _<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 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>_