PUNE: As a part of the ongoing transformation drive, city-based COEP Tech University; the 170-year-old organization imparting top-class engineering education for the first time, has introduced the Endowment for the ‘Chair Professorship’ concept for enhancing academic excellence.
The first of its kind in this regard would be ‘Dr. Pramod Chaudhari Chair Professorship in the Area of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning and related areas. This was announced by Vinayak Pai, Chairman, of the Board of Governance (BoG), COEP Tech University during the recent meeting of the Board of Governance held at COEP. A MoU for this Chair Professorship was signed between COEP and veteran industrialist Dr. Pramod Chaudhari, who is known as the Ethanol Man of India and has donated an amount of Rs 1 Crore for this Chair Professorship.
Dr. Sunil Bhirud, Vice Chancellor of COEP Tech University, Dr. D. N. Sonawane, Registrar – COEP, Bharat Gite, Member of Board of Governance (BOG) and President – Alumni Association- COEP, A. D. Thube – Member of BOG, Dr. Vinod Mohitkar, Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) – Maharashtra State, Dr. Narendra Dhokey, Director- RIIL (Research, Innovation, and Industrial Linkages) -COEP, Dr. Parag Sadgir, Dean, Faculty of Engineering, Dr. Pradeep Deshmukh, HOD- Computer Engineering- COEP, Prof. Prashant Bartakke, Associate Dean- COEP and D. V. Nimbolkar from Praj Industries were present on the occasion.
Dr. Sunil Bhirud said, “This is indeed a path-breaking step. For the first time in the history of COEP, such an initiative is being rolled out on the lines of IITs with support from Dr. Pramod Chaudhari, who has generously donated Rs.1 Crore towards the Endowment Fund for this dedicated Chair titled Dr. Pramod Chaudhari Chair Professorship in the Area of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning and related areas.”
“As a standard practice, every year the interest earned from this donation would be utilized for getting the best resource from across the globe for teaching the advancements in AIML to the students of COEP. This will prove to be very beneficial for the students since AIML is evolving at a very fast pace. We intend to start utilization of this donation from the upcoming academic year.” Dr. Bhirud added.
Dr. Pramod Chaudhari said, “I am happy to be the pioneer of starting such a Chair Professorship at COEP. I hope this will encourage many others to come forward and extend help to COEP on similar lines. My similar effort to start the Chair Professorship for Green Chemistry and Industrial Biotechnology at IIT Bombay has yielded good results and I hope the same from COEP. ”