Director’s convocation address (Dec 2019)

Director’s Address – VJTI Convocation 2018-19 batch (held on 20 Dec 2019)

Chief guest of the Convocation – Dr Srinivasan Ramani (Founder Director of NCST Mumbai and Hewlett Packard Labs India ), Hon’ble Chairperson of Board of Governors VJTI – Mrs. Sandra Shroff, Members of BoG of VJTI, Deans, Professors, Head of the Departments, Faculty and staff members, invited guests, dear students who are receiving diploma and degree, Parents, Ladies and Gentlemen..

I welcome you all at this convocation function of Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute Mumbai. At the outset, my sincere thanks to Dr Ramani for accepting our invitation and grace the occasion.

VJTI Mumbai (erstwhile Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute – established in 1887) has been in the forefront in producing engineers for nation building. Our institute is known for attracting the best students and producing the high quality engineers and researchers.

I take this opportunity to report and share the remarkable accomplishments of our Institute, with a legacy of over 132 years.

During this convocation ceremony, we are awarding Diploma to total ____ candidates (who have fulfilled all the requirements by passing relevant exams in academic year 2018-19), distributing B Tech Degree to ____ candidates, M Tech to ____ candidates, and MCA to ___ candidates. It is also worth to mention that ___ research scholars of VJTI Mumbai are conferred with Ph D degree during Mumbai University’s convocation function.

We have been continuously augmenting our teaching, learning and research environment, work and personal lives considering institute’s vision and mission of building the next generation of technocrats, innovators and visionaries; and taking technology to Society. We are aligning our mission to challenges associated with United Nations’ Sustainable Development goals and working on local and universally acceptable innovative solutions made in VJTI for global good. This shift is immensely helping us attain new insights and ways forward.

Improving students’ satisfaction level and empowering them with new opportunities are core principles of VJTI. We have enhanced facilitating and encouraging students to fulfil their aspirations and participate in technical, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities and competitions. And for that, we have simplified and aligned continuous evaluation with substantial reforms in curriculum and examination system and augmented Tinkering facilities. We are in the process of setting up new Centres of Excellence at all departments. We are aligning our curriculum to the latest pedagogical practices, emphasizing project oriented learning, and technologies for solving problems for society. 

Students and Alumni are our true brand ambassadors.  Our students have won national and global hackathons. We are blessed with our huge alumni base and very supportive alumni association helping us (students, faculty and staff) in many ways and keeping our flags high. We are touched by the enormous contribution and confidence alumni and well-wishers have placed in the Institute. VJTI-USA AA has taken a definite shape.

With a mission of keeping VJTI clean, green and environment friendly, we are successfully doing repairs and restoration of our old heritage buildings and other facilities; giving a decent looks to the institute infrastructure. We are refurbishing toilets with sustainable eco-friendly and cleanliness measures.

Our faculty and staff members have joined hands to facilitate students and upgrade VJTI teaching-learning-research ecosystem. Over these long years, they have developed a national and international reputation for its pedagogical innovations. We are doing very well with Consultancy, Outreach, Research and Academic collaborations, and Industry partnerships.

The world has shown trust in our work, which resulted in our collaborations with Universities, Industries and R&D organizations of high repute and this year we saw substantial growth in our national and international partnerships by signing about 20 MoUs with Governments/Universities/Institutes and Industry/Research Labs of global repute. We had visiting experts from the leading institutions and R&D labs from India and abroad. Similarly, our students and faculty also made their presence felt on national and international platforms. All these are taking us to enhancing Globalization of education at our institute opening new opportunities for our students, faculty and staff.

We stand ready for the ambitious task of re-establishing ourselves as an institution of global stature, which can contribute to the nation’s building through technology. We are among the most respected campuses, who are heading towards being a landmark on the world map. We have excellent placement records both in terms of quantity and quality employment (100% placement high value packages). Technology Based Incubator at VJTI under DST NIDHI TBI project has attracted top notch entrepreneurs and we will see thriving start-up echo system in place in couple of months from now. We have received generous support from Industries for this initiative. We are enabling students to take advantage of summer internships at top industries, research organizations and institutions and at VJTI for two months.

As we consolidate our experiences from our eventful past and the present, we are now crafting a step by step vision for our future. Our focus has been innovation, and we expect that the lessons we picked up along the way will help the next phase of our growth. 

Thank you for your attention.

Jai Hind, Jai Maharashtra.

-Dr. Dhiren Patel, Director – VJTI Mumbai