Making sure that the children of today and the future of tomorrow are trained for the days to come, Manovikas School, Gogol has gone a step further by introducing its recently launched Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI). The centre was inaugurated in March 2015 by the vice-chancellor of Goa University, Satish Shetye, and unlike other incubation centres that are usually attached to higher institutes of learning; this is the first to be attached to a school.
“In a world where only the most innovative succeed, we need to demonstrate to children early in life the process of innovation and our school has provided a platform for this,” said the school Chairman Jose Manuel Noronha.
The centre is equipped with five independent office spaces with Wi-Fi connectivity, a conference room, a bootstrap area, a robotics laboratory and a 3D printer for its students so that they are exposed to new technologies. Students from the third standard to the tenth and higher secondary pupils have access to the facilities.
“It is established to offer an opportunity to our students to understand the principles of Science and Technology in an exploratory manner,” said Samir Nadkarni, Vice Chairman of CSTI. Manovikas Public Charitable Trust has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Don Bosco College of Engineering (DBO). While the engineering college’s teaching faculty gives guest lectures at the school, the engineering students have access to the facilities for any project they wish to develop. In addition to the MOU with DBO, Noronha added that innovators in Science and Technology can utilize their facilities to incubate their ideas for a period of 18 months as part of the incubation process. Some of the cubicles are already occupied by innovators with high qualifications including from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and in turn the students get to benefit by interacting with the innovators and the latter.
The glee and eagerness on the face of students as young as the fourth standard where students were seen designing a model plough for fields or a remote control car revealed that generation next could not only grasp technology easily but were able to take their ideas to the next step. “We want to move beyond academics into these areas of research and help our students be updated with the latest advances in the world of modern technology and will play a big part in their education” added Noronha.
Noronha himself is a student of innovation at the University of Texas at Austin and has seen first hand the kind of impact it has and he has also been involved with Centre for Incubation and Business Acceleration (CIBA) that is tied up with Padre Conceicao College of Engineering (PCCE). He also asserted that this would make the students more aware of what’s going on in the world and help them make their own educated decisions on their future course of education be it science, engineering, architecture etc. When asked if he felt this was not too technical for the student to understand, Noronha felt that in today’s day and age, it is the children who figure out how to use gadgets and go on to teach the elders.
On that note, Sandra Da Costa said it was directly pushing the students to seek answers about technology every household uses as a matter of routine like how the gear of a car works, how bulbs work or how does the remote control of a television set operate.
“They should understand the basic technological terms that are used in practical life. We had this student who took the motor from his toy and then made a model boat that was powered by a battery. The boat was made from our 3D printer which the student designed himself,” added Sandra. Other students made a 3D pencil holder, comic hero figurines like batman or animal figurines. Students come in batches to the centre and are taught to derive ideas from software which carry instructions on how to use technology.
It is common to see parents being very involved with academics and extracurricular activities of their wards and it is a pleasant surprise to note that students are even sent on holidays to these innovation centres which shows that the interest level among the students have been even bigger than expected.
Don’t be surprised if the next Steve Jobs is a product of CSTI or the app you use is designed by a 12 year old student.
