Leaders call for stronger government–industry–academia collaboration at Chanakya University event

Bengaluru: The leaders, who gathered at Chanakya University to celebrate the third Foundation Day in Bengaluru on Saturday, urged people and the government to collectively “dream audaciously, experiment fearlessly, and innovate with purpose,” positioning research and high-quality education as the “solution space for humanity’s greatest challenges.”

The leaders collectively stressed that the next phase of India’s growth must be driven by a strong “triple helix” partnership between government, industry, and academia.

Organised under the theme ‘Celebrating the Spirit of Vidya Dana,’ the event brought together a lineup of industry and policy leaders, including Biocon Executive Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the PM Shamika Ravi, who emphasised the imperative for academic institutions to align with India’s technological and economic vision.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, a key supporter of the institution, highlighted the transformative role of technology.

“The future of biology is computational, and AI has transformed biology from a descriptive science into a design discipline,” she said. She stressed that India’s unique demographic and digital health scale provides the foundational layers for precision and personalised medicine.

Shamika Ravi said that the paradox of high graduate unemployment coexisting with severe industrial skill shortages.

“The most educated segment in our society is nearly five times likely to be sitting at home than our youth with a school education,” she noted, calling this a failure of the education system to pivot from merely “giving out degrees” to imparting market-ready “skills.” 

Chancellor and former ISRO Chairman S Somanath, in his presidential address, said, “Chanakya University is just shaping its character around the core principles of purity of thought, ethical conduct and transformative action.”

The gathering also felicitated key contributors to the university.

Vice-Chancellor Prof Yashavantha Dongre welcomed dignitaries, including Vice Chairman of Bharti Enterprises Rakesh Bharti Mittal, CEO of Azim Premji Foundation Anurag Behar, Founder of Accel India Prashanth Prakash and Founder of Aarin Capital T V Mohandas Pai.