Are we hurting learning and teaching by diverting funds from blackboards to digital boards?

Policy makers seem to be drowning in a sea of buzzwords. This tendency seems particularly marked in “digital” initiatives. Digital, it seems, is the ultimate panacea for every problem. Our classrooms — in schools and universities — will soon be adorned with “digital boards”. These boards “will work on emerging technologies including Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Analytics and provide ‘Intelligent Tutoring’ to students based on their personal requirements.” (‘Over 1.5 lakh schools to get digital boards under scheme,’ IE, February 20)The deployment of this technology is expected to improve the quality of teaching-learning and also ensure that graduates are no longer “unsuitable for the requirements of the society and market”. That sounds quite a lot for a digital board to achieve.

To read the full article, please visit:

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/prakash-javadekar-digital-boards-classrooms-right-to-education-5663965/ (Accessed on April 8, 2019)

A ‘million word gap’ for children not read to at home

Parents who read them five books a day help them build a better vocabulary ahead of kindergarten

Young children whose parents read them five books a day enter kindergarten having heard about 1.4 million more words than children who were never read to, a study has found.

To read the full article, please visit:

https://www.thehindu.com/books/a-million-word-gap-for-children-not-read-to-at-home/article26763466.ece (Accessed on April 8, 2019)

Stir the IPR pot for innovation

Last month, the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Centre (GIPC) released its 7th annual International Intellectual Property (IP) Index, which assesses the IP climate in 50 world economies. India moved from 44th rank in 2018 to 36th in 2019. But, looking at the scores across the eight categories assessed, India comes in well below the average score of the top five economies, and scores considerably lower than the Asia average.

India’s national IP Rights Policy (IPR) was created in 2016. One of its stated objectives was ‘to guide and enable all creators and inventors to realise the potential for generating, protecting and utilising IP which would contribute to wealth creation, employment generation and business development’. It also aimed to ‘foster predictability, clarity and transparency in the entire IP regime in order to provide a secure and stable climate for stimulating inventions and creations’.

To read the full article, please visit:

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/blogs/et-commentary/stir-the-ipr-pot-for-innovation/ (Accessed on April 8, 2019)

प्राचार्य होण्यासाठी दहा शोधनिबंध प्रसिद्ध करण्याची अट

Blockchain (Accenture)

It’s changing the future as we speak—but where do you start? Harness Blockchain with real-world applications from the leaders in distributed ledger technologies.

To read the full article, visit:
https://www.accenture.com/gb-en/services/blockchain-index (Accessed on April 5, 2019)

Will Blockchain Replace EDI? Yes And No

The first version of the GS1 EPCIS standard was drafted in 2007 by GS1 and GS1 US. GS1 is a nonprofit organization that creates and maintains standards for business communications and GS1 US is a member of GS1. The standard enables organizations to create and share visibility event data, both within and across organizations. The standardized data (the payload) was intended to be exchanged as XML files. Little could anyone have foreseen the standard using blockchain as a transmission medium.

To read the full article, please visit:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/04/03/will-blockchain-replace-edi-yes-and-no/#2ccced9847d7 (Accessed on April 5, 2019)

Artificial Intelligence can help in treating brain tumours: Study

The study showed that using a reference database with MRI scans of patients, the algorithms automatically recognised and localised brain tumours using artificial neural networks. 

Artificial Intelligence can help in treating brain tumours  |  Photo Credit: Thinkstock

London: Researchers have developed an artificial intelligence-based (AI) method for analysis of brain tumours, paving the way for individualised treatment of tumours.

According to the study, published in the The Lancet Oncology, AI machine learning methods, carefully trained on standard magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), are more reliable and precise than established radiological methods in the treatment of gliomas. 

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