IIT Gandhinagar Inaugurates Academic Space to Nurture Innovative Thinking, Active Learning

The Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) has inaugurated Maker Bhavan today, which is a multidimensional academic makerspace to nurture innovative thinking and hands-on learning among students. It aims to turn students into doers, leaders and innovators. It is envisaged to be a catalyst for transforming pedagogic practices and ensuring that active learning, creativity, and innovation become an integral part of teaching and learning at institute, it says.

The makerspace is designed on the lines of MIT and Caltech, with teamwork areas, a creative studio, and a variety of digital manufacturing equipment and electronics labs to motivate students to convert their ideas into real prototypes, says IITGN. It will also have co-curricular programmes, industry engagement, internship opportunities, lecture series, conferences, hands-on workshops, etc.

Sharing his thoughts about seeds that inspired Maker Bhavan Foundation to build such a makerspace at IITGN, Dr Hemant Kanakia said, “I wish I had a different kind of education at IIT when I was studying because real-world engineering is very different and multi-disciplinary than classroom studies. There is no one answer to a problem, and so a lot of re-learning has to be done to become a successful engineer. We have created this Maker Bhavan to emphasise that learning can be done better by doing. The experience of actually making something makes students very confident in tackling the challenges in a very different way, and that is the importance of the world of making. We want students to be inventive and develop an attitude for creative thinking. It’s been a great partnership with IITGN, and we hope to do many more things together in years to come.”

Speaking on the occasion, Prof Amit Prashant said, “We are thankful to the Maker Bhavan Foundation for giving impetus to this idea and for being an active force behind building this world-class makerspace at IITGN that promotes active learning, creativity, and research innovation at various levels. We are sure that the kind of teaching and learning experience and interdisciplinary interactions our students will get here will empower them with real-world problem-solving skills.”

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