Use technology for betterment of humanity and direct your skills to solve problems of our times and people, said additional principal secretary to the Prime Minister, Mr P K Mishra while addressing students of National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, here on Saturday.

He was addressing the 15th•Annual Convocation for the graduating under and post graduate students. The technological transformation is heralding in a new paradigm and the best example is ‘connected, sharing economy, which has transformed doing business today.” He cited Uber, Alibaba, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube as examples of the changed businesses of the day.

There has been no single time in recent history where opportunities for bright enterprising youth like you have been more plentiful and diverse, he said. He termed technology as the harbinger of the next revolution as the engineers were best equipped to drive this change. “Give wings to your imagination spark off a buzz and who knows tomorrow’s Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Uber or Tesla may just originate from Rourkela.” Mr Mishra recalled his days as an officer in Sundergarh district here. He asked students not to forget their alma mater and to contribute to its glory.

His mantra was, “remain committed to hard work, go that extra mile, have humility and respect for other along with empathy, chose rightly between right to do and what is right to do and finally, hunger for knowledge, and learning along with physical and emotional wellbeing.” The chairman of the BoG Santrupta Misra, Director Group HR Aditya Birla Management Corporation quoted Mark Twain and said, “I never allowed my schooling to come in the way of my education.”

Speaking the board activities he said, “the board has embarked on brainstorming to prepare a new vision for the institute and this vision is not just a statement but a desired future and a form of self-expression.” He thanked the ministry of HRD for having named him as the Chairman of NIT Rourkela. Earlier, the Director  Animesh Biswas read out the annual convocation report. He spoke at length about the achievements of the institute. “I am happy our institute has been ranked among the top institutions nationally and globally.” NIT R stands between 601-800 in the TIMES world university ranking, said Mr Biswas.

As far as innovation and incubation was concerned he mentioned that the institute was giving top priority to the two. “There are already a few successful start-ups as Estinno, Peeny India, Ovotees and others.” The Director also mentioned that top corporate houses like, Nokia, Suzuki Motors. Hero Motors and others were recruiting form the institute.

This year 570 B Tech, 117 dual degree, 413 M Tech, 44  integrated M Sc, 104 M Sc., 11 MA, 33 MBA,, 110 PhD  and 19 M Tech by research students received their degrees. Anamay Sarkar, got the Best Graduate Gold Medal and K Apoorva Tejaswi, got the Best All Rounder. Abhishek Chakraborty got the institute gold medal for the best M Tech Graduate.

B Sneha got the institute gold medal for best graduate in dual degree and Sachidananda Prasad got institute gold medal for the best post graduate with integrated M Sc Degree. Pungantisai Akanksha got the gold medal for the best undergraduate project.