January 2022

Looking Ahead & Cheers to the New Year!

Happy New Year!!!

I wish you and your loved ones a joyous 2022. In these exceptionally challenging times, hope the new year brings new and exciting opportunities and prospects to enrich our lives. Heartfelt thanks to one and all for the amazing behind the scenes work on engagement and success of joint as well as individual endeavours on this important bi-national corridor between India and Canada. At the front and centre of this upcoming year is the need to understand, discuss and dialogue together to create a collaborative vision for SICI and its member institutions, partners and stakeholders. These past two years, SICI integrated the strengths and needs of its intellectual community. We have understood the need of the hour and deliberated to set forth new and re-visited existing institutional priorities, and now ready to take baby steps towards launch of our plans for the upcoming years.

The year 2021 ended with a long impending good news as we finally witnessed the appointment and setting up of an academic chair in the name of Guru Nanak Dev ji, at Concordia University, Canada, SICI’s esteemed member institution. The Institute shares great history with Concordia university in terms of achieving cooperation in higher education and research. This Academic Chair is an initiative of government of India to promote and disseminate the teachings of Guru Nanak Dev ji in foreign campuses. It was the last meeting of the Joint Working Group of India and Canada on Higher Education held in February 2019, when Government of India floated this idea and invited Canadian academic fraternity to join hands. I will take a few steps back here to remind our readers that SICI celebrated the 551st birth anniversary of Sri Guru Nanak Dev ji in Calgary, Alberta, in 2019 by coming together for an ‘Engaging India, Engaging Canada’ conference to celebrate and explore the contemporary relevance of Guru Nanak Dev Ji's philosophy and message. My sincere thanks to His Excellency Ajay Bisaria who signed the MOU on behalf of Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) with Concordia University and Mr. Cuckoo Kochar.

Innovation & Research @ SICI’s Member Institutions!

The story that intrigued my interest was one in which student scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras developed a water assessment device by combining the power of hardware with artificial intelligence. This low-cost device with a multitude of uses is developed by a team called “Saaf Water” that aims to help save millions of lives in India if deployed on the large-scale. Such an innovative medium will surely empower our local leaders and communities to take charge of the situation better, without having to wait for lab results that may take several hours or perhaps days. Great work, IIT Madras! And, based on a similar theme, Dr. Jay Famiglietti, Executive Director of the USask Global Institute for Water Security and Dr. Martyn Clark, Associate Director of the Centre for Hydrology and Coldwater Laboratory, two of University of Saskatchewan’s water experts have been named in the list of world’s most highly-cited researchers (top 1% of citations). It comes as no surprise that USask is a home to renowned research centres that makes it one of Canada’s leading research-intensive universities. York University, on the other hand, is investing more than $3.5 million in interdisciplinary research with a focus on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that could have real-world, global impact through its Catalyzing Interdisciplinary Research Clusters (CIRC) initiative. The initiative will help fund research excellence for interdisciplinary projects in strategic areas, including artificial intelligence and society, digital cultures and financial technologies (fintech), disaster and risk governance. Such an encouraging news for our scholars whose research is sure to have a transformative impact on society and in the world at-large. Another landmark innovation occurred in Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, located in one of the hill states of India, which developed low-cost landslide monitoring and early warning system. The system monitors weather and soil properties, provides soil movement alerts via hooters and blinkers installed on the road remotely via text message, which is claimed to be one-of-a-kind system in the world. This is definitely a brilliant news given the state of Himachal Pradesh is prone to numerous landslides each year due to excessive rains and inclement weather.

This blog will be incomplete if I miss the recent announcement of recipients for the Order of Canada. I take this opportunity to congratulate companions, members and officers who were recently named to the Order of Canada for their outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to Canada and world at-large. They are authors, musicians, judges, scientists, physicians, educationists, university faculty, philanthropists (the list is long) who have worked for years to innovate and invent.

This announcement triggered many ideas and thoughts while I am writing through a maze of stories, innovations of all kinds, etc. It is how well we do our job at hand, pursue our passion in what we do and the right intention behind each of these thoughts and ideas. There is inspiration to be had from all of these and I cannot help but direct my attention at another most important driving force in our line of work. It is the leadership that makes a lot of it happen at a collective level. When we inspire lives around us, we naturally lead the group. In the process, some of the profoundest transitions happen in self-perception, and of course, when we are handed over the reins to lead colleagues, employees, folks, teams to achieve desired goals. So, it’s not just successors, but effective leaders! I’d say that I wish to conserve my thoughts for the time-being on leadership matters in academia and take up in the next issue of my blog. Stay tuned for more on this!

This brings me to the tail end of this blog now. Before I take a leave, I wish to extend a warm welcome to His Excellency Cameron MacKay, the new High Commissioner of Canada to India, Mr. Benoit Préfontaine, Consul General in Bengaluru, Mr. Patrick Hébert, as Consul General in Chandigarh, and Ms. Diedrah Kelly, Consul General in Mumbai. I am excited to work with all of you! SICI is happy to support in your duties, and at every step of fostering India-Canada relations.

In 2022, SICI commits to continue to remain actively engaged with all of you, maintain our momentum and meeting the demands of changing times in the higher education and research domain. Whatever your role in making this a joint success this past year, I thank you for being a part of this journey to newness and abundant opportunities.

Also, don’t forget to apply for our newly announced programmes 2021-22. Apply today! Click here!

Let’s remain positive in our attitude and resilient during such an enduring time!

Sincere regards,