Established in 2002, BMS Institute of Technology and Management (BMSIT&M) is an offshoot of BMS College of Engineering, the first private engineering college in India founded by late B.M. Sreenivasaiah, a philanthropist and a great visionary who realized the necessity of technical education even before the country got independence. Having all its eligible educational programs accredited by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA), and accredited by National Assessment & Accreditation Council (NAAC) with ‘A’ grade, BMSIT&M is pursuing Outcome Based Education (OBE) in its true spirit to make students capable of solving any industrial or societal problems.
Attending workshops and reading trade journals will help educators to gain some knowledge of advances in the technology. A working engineer, however, will often have firsthand knowledge and experience with latest devices, techniques and material relating to his/her field. So, should an educator try to keep up with a working engineer? The answer is a resounding yes and proving it to the world is Bangalore-based BMS Institute of Technology and Management (BMSIT&M), one of a very few engineering colleges in the country where all the faculty members have been undergoing industry internships, year after year.
“As a forward-looking institution, we are pursuing all the possible ways to leverage the ecosystem around us to achieve our vision. Bangalore being one of the commercial hubs in the country helps us a lot in making a strong industry connect”, says Dr. Mohan Babu G. N., Principal, BMS Institute of Technology and Management. At BMSIT&M, faculty members are not the only community that actively seeks the much-needed industry connect. BMSIT&M facilitates its students to undergo industry internship right from the first year to enhance their skills and be industry ready. In the last 18 months, close to 2000 students of BMSIT&M have completed internships in over 530 companies.
“Now, you can imagine the quality of discussion that happens in the classroom when you have students and faculty members with industry exposure meeting face to face. The interactions are largely based on the industrial problems, rather than academic and textbook knowledge,” adds Dr. Mohan Babu. The institute has signed several MoU with reputed industry players to offer employability enhancement courses, facilitate project based learning, and set up labs in the campus which enable its students to carry out research projects and avail training on emerging technologies to be more valuable to industry. MOU with NAL, GTRE, KPIT, Valluri Technology Accelerators, Tata Elxsi, Texas Instruments – Edgate, Volvo, and Federal Mogul are few names to mention from that list.
An active industry-institute relation support by cutting-edge research facilities has helped BMSIT&M to establish collaborations with many foreign entities. Recently, a team of delegates from Czech Republic led by Mr. Milan Havorka, Czech Ambassador to India, had visited the BMSIT&M campus. “We will be having an MoU with Czech Republic for a faculty and student exchange program. We will also help them to solve certain practical problems in the project they are planning to do in India,” shares Dr. Mohan Babu.
By successfully implementing bold and innovative initiatives to improve the quality of learning, this 17-year-old institution has cemented its position among the premier engineering colleges in the country. Despite being an affiliated college of Visvesvaraya Technological University, BMSIT&M was ranked 95th best engineering college by NIRF in 2017, overtaking many autonomous colleges in the list.
Facilitating the Creation of Knowledge
When it comes to the qualification required for people to be a part of the institute’s faculty team, BMSIT&M has set the bar so high compared to the AICTE norms. “A Ph.D degree from a reputed institution is mandatory to join our institution as a faculty member. The ones who have joined earlier with an M.Tech degree need to complete their Ph.D by 2021. We also give a lot of incentives and encouragement for faculty members who are actively participating in the research activities,” claims Dr. Mohan Babu. At present, 35 percent of the faculty members hold Ph.D and remaining 65 percent are pursuing research at BMSIT&M.
Dr. Mohan Babu pinpoints, “Most of the institutions in India are traditional in thinking. To break this barrier, we should allow our faculty members to experiment on teaching and research. Sometimes, we may fail. Here, we are open to failure and we encourage new methodologies of teaching and learning.” A team of highly innovative and experienced faculty members headed by the Principal is one of the major strengths of BMSIT&M.
The institute conducts a weekly one-hour meeting named ‘Gyanvardhan,’ where one of the professors will present his/her research work before all other senior faculty members. This interaction has helped exploring possibilities of looking at problems from a multidisciplinary perspective in the pursuit of more effective solutions. Isn’t it that every engineering problem is multidisciplinary in nature?” questions Dr. Mohan Babu.
Turning Intellectual Capital into Marketable Products
Today, BMSIT&M is not only strong in the area of applied and developmental research, but also making positive strides in promoting basic research which is lacking in many Indian institutions. “Developmental research is all about refining practical solutions for problems into products/processes that are marketable at a large scale. However, it is the cutting-edge basic research that holds the key to economic supremacy of a nation. While, foreign universities focus more on such basic research, most of the Indian institutions are finding it difficult dig deeper than applied and developmental research” states Dr. Mohan Babu.
To encourage students and faculty members to make viable products, BMSIT&M has created innovation cells and incubation center in the campus. Dr. Mohan Babu says, “We have tied-up with many industry consultants to identify commercial value of the projects that we do here.” At present, BMSIT&M has more than 15 students running their businesses from within the campus. Most of them are into IT sector. “A few of our students have already taken off from the incubation center and built their own enterprises outside,” adds Dr. Mohan Babu.
Now, BMSIT&M is on the verge of achieving an important milestone in its journey – the autonomous status. Dr. Mohan Babu and his team are gearing up for the challenge. “We have made all the necessary arrangements to apply for autonomous status. However, as autonomy is a double-edged sword, only meticulous planning and committed execution would help raise the quality of education.” pinpoints Dr. Mohan Babu. BMSIT&M is also introducing an undergraduate program in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning from the academic year 2019-20 to prepare students to face the challenges of Industry 4.0. Once that happens, BMSIT&M would become the first engineering college under AICTE to offer this UG program in the country.
Dr. Mohan Babu G.N., Principal
Dr. Mohan Babu G.N., a Ph.D degree holder in Technology Management from IIT Madras, has been working in the engineering education sector for 33 years now. He has served institutions of repute namely, Malnad College of Engineering, Hassan, and M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore, before taking over as the Principal of BMSIT&M in July 2015. His specializations include Industrial Engineering, Business Management, Strategic planning, Technology Management, and Creative Design of Engineering Systems. He is known in the education circle as a leader with clarity of vision and commitment to build institutions. Under his leadership BMSIT&M is growing from height to height.