How did this team from IITM quietly build the world's largest edtech platform? | BP2B S1 Ep. 25

1. 0:00 – 1:40

   Introduction & Meet the Professor Revolutionising Education

   1. ATAndrew Thangaraj0:00

      So it started out by recording classes at IIT, putting it up on the portal, making it free for anybody to access. This is before YouTube and all that. We have taken them from zero, literally, and given them every single thing that they know. At least get a peep into the classes at IIT.

   2. SPSpeaker0:17

      Right.

   3. ATAndrew Thangaraj0:17

      Because otherwise, IITs are these really tough places to get in. This year, GATE DA paper, Rank 1, Rank 7, and Rank 10 are BS students. First rank, you won't believe it, is an AIIMS doctor. So whatever we can scale, we should scale. [upbeat music]

   4. SPSpeaker0:43

      Hi, my name is Amrit. We've heard that IIT Madras is the best place to build. [upbeat music] So we've come down to the Sudha and Shankar Innovation Hub. We want to meet some people. These are builders. We want to talk to them about their work and also ask them, what makes IIT Madras the best place to build? [upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to The Best Place to Build podcast. Today, our guest with us is Professor Andrew Thangaraj. He's a professor of electrical engineering at IIT Madras, but also is involved in NPTEL, CODE, and the BS degree. So we'll learn a little bit about electrical engineering and a lot about how the other stuff works, uh, the outreach of IIT Madras. Professor, welcome to the podcast.

   5. ATAndrew Thangaraj1:31

      Thank you. Happy to be here.

   6. SPSpeaker1:33

      Professor, let's start with, uh, uh, what are your research areas? What do you teach? What are the courses where students interact with you?

2. 1:40 – 3:19

   Prof. Andrew's Research & Teaching Areas: Information Theory

   1. ATAndrew Thangaraj1:40

      Yeah, so my research area is in the broad field of information theory, so, uh, sort of theoretical, mathematical-oriented, probability, statistics. So what I teach these days is primarily that. I teach, uh, probability class, which is quite popular with the students. Uh, I teach an information theory class, which is popular with the students as well, and, uh, I'm gonna teach a statistics class as well, so those kind of topics I teach.

   2. SPSpeaker2:04

      Professor, um, I don't know much about it, but I've read that information theory or Shannon's information theory is-

   3. ATAndrew Thangaraj2:10

      Yeah

   4. SPSpeaker2:10

      ... like, a very magical moment in this field.

   5. ATAndrew Thangaraj2:12

      Yeah.

   6. SPSpeaker2:12

      Can you tell us a little bit about that? [laughing]

   7. ATAndrew Thangaraj2:14

      So when it started, it was, uh, really magic, because I think people didn't really think of information as a quantity, right? I think, uh, you always think of it as, um, some abstract entity. Uh, so Shannon's work, I think, first quantified information, how much information is there when somebody talks, when somebody sings, when somebody is shooting a movie, et cetera, et cetera. And then not only that, he came up with, uh, algorithms or not, not... Yeah, actually, I shouldn't say he came up with algorithms. He came up with analysis of these algorithms to say, how best you can store information, how best you can process information, how best you can communicate information. These kind of, uh, fundamental limits on how best you can do these things is what Shannon did very, very early on. And today, after so many years of decades of work, uh, today, you can say a lot of algorithms that are currently in existence, in your phone, in your cameras, in your recording devices, are pretty close to the best, uh, that Shannon had predicted. So that way, it is theory, it's mathematics, and it's engineering, all of it coming together wonderfully.

3. 3:19 – 5:35

   Key Concepts in Information Theory: Source & Channel Coding

   1. SPSpeaker3:19

      Very interesting. What I remember from my own engineering days, which was 20 years back, uh, is that, uh, before Shannon, uh, people assumed that if there's a recording, for example, the entire thing has to be recorded.

   2. ATAndrew Thangaraj3:33

      Mm.

   3. SPSpeaker3:33

      And after Shannon, it- people realized that you don't need to record the whole thing, you need to record... I don't know what that means, but [laughing] can you, can you-

   4. ATAndrew Thangaraj3:41

      No, I think-

   5. SPSpeaker3:41

      Tell me if I'm right or wrong.

   6. ATAndrew Thangaraj3:42

      Yeah, maybe, maybe, um, so what you're talking about is how much you have to store. You record something, do you store everything you recorded, or do you, do you store a s- smaller-sized version of it from which you can recover everything? So that, uh, is called source coding, generally, in the Shannon literature, and that is something that he thought about and he created. So for instance, in English, when we speak, there is a lot of repetition, right? So a lot of things we repeat, a lot of things we say, and, and, and sometimes when you speak four words, you automatically know what the first word is.

   7. SPSpeaker4:13

      Mm.

   8. ATAndrew Thangaraj4:14

      So things like that, you don't have to store again. If you k- if you know it is English, you can come back and recover those things. So that's source coding. Another interesting thing is what's called channel coding, where you communicate information. So when you send a bit, it may get flipped, right? You, you may send a zero, it- the receiver may think it's a one. So that happens a lot in communication when you send from your mobile phone to the tower. Now, in spite of that, how do you communicate? How do you make sure that your zero remains a zero, your one remains a one? So that's called channel coding. That's also something that Shannon did. So he came up with fundamental limits. So when I say fundamental limits, you might wonder what that is, right? So a lot of us, you can see around us, there are building-- people are building things. You can build something and make it work once. So that's good, and that's very tough engineering skill. It's, it's hard to master. But then how do you know that somebody else won't build something better than you, right? So somebody else may come in and build something better and beat you, right? On the other hand, if you are close to the fundamental limit of how best somebody can build, then not only you know that you've built it, you also know that you've built it in a way that it is the best possible thing that you can do, and nobody else can beat you. So that, I think, is the sense you have to get from information theory. Information theory, in the information context, tells you fundamental limits of how best something can be built.

4. 5:35 – 7:44

   What is Electrical Engineering?

   1. SPSpeaker5:35

      Nice. So these are the courses you take, these are your research areas, and, uh, I understand that, uh... Actually, from a broader lens in electrical engineering-

   2. ATAndrew Thangaraj5:44

      Mm

   3. SPSpeaker5:45

      ... uh, if, if a student joins-

   4. ATAndrew Thangaraj5:47

      Mm

   5. SPSpeaker5:47

      ... BTech in Elec, what does he actually learn? What are the interesting courses? What are the specializations?

   6. ATAndrew Thangaraj5:53

      [chuckles] So I have a take on electrical engineering. I think all of electrical engineering is the sine wave.... Okay, so it's, it's not my, uh, take on it. A lot of other professors, I'm sure, will say the same thing. I think, uh, there's, in art, I think the capability to, you know, draw a circle or a line or a stroke is very interesting. I think for, uh, an electrical engineer, understanding and controlling sine waves is very interesting. So, uh, so, so that also tells you something about what it is, right? So s- the sine wave, you can study mathematically as an equation, you know, you ... all the trigonometry of the world, and then you can also do calculus around it. A lot of mathematics is behind it. But also what's interesting about the sine wave is it, it gets generated by physical processes. Like, you know, maybe you can think of so many vibration, things that happen, it happens with a sine wave. Open and close a door, it sort of happens in a sine wave. So a lot of sine waves happen in physical systems because differential equations and all of that, those kind of things. So, so one, one way to view electrical engineering is it models, uh, the physics of electromagnetic variation and all of those things, but in the context of being able to control it and build devices from it. So you need the mathematics and you need the physics. Together, you control potential and current in different places, and then build circuits and get things to react to you the way you want them to. So any electrical device that you see around you is like that. You control potential and voltage, I mean, potential and current, that's all you control. And you can control it very smartly by building these circuits, and then get things to react to you. So everything is like that. Generators are like that, motors are like that, transformers are like that, small mobile phones are like that. I mean, except the kind of voltage you deal with may be very high or very low or something like that, but nevertheless, uh, it's, it's fundamentally, it's about controlling potential and current in circuits.

5. 7:44 – 8:00

   Electrical Engineering Specialisations at IIT Madras

   1. SPSpeaker7:44

      Very interesting, and, and I love that you took, took those examples, because then I can segue into this.

   2. ATAndrew Thangaraj7:49

      [chuckles]

   3. SPSpeaker7:49

      Um, the issue that happens when people talk of electrical engineering is that they sometimes think of electrical as power systems, generators-

   4. ATAndrew Thangaraj7:57

      Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

   5. SPSpeaker7:57

      - and, and some other people think of it as circuits

6. 8:00 – 12:17

   Truth About IIT Difficulty - Professor's Honest Take

   1. SPSpeaker8:00

      and-

   2. ATAndrew Thangaraj8:00

      Mm

   3. SPSpeaker8:00

      ... PCBs and-

   4. ATAndrew Thangaraj8:01

      Mm.

   5. SPSpeaker8:01

      And so, and, um, the question that we get asked often-

   6. ATAndrew Thangaraj8:05

      Mm

   7. SPSpeaker8:05

      ... is what is different between electrical engineering and-

   8. ATAndrew Thangaraj8:08

      Mm

   9. SPSpeaker8:08

      ... EEE and ECE-

   10. ATAndrew Thangaraj8:11

       Mm

   11. SPSpeaker8:11

       ... and EEE, and what IITM offers is EE.

   12. ATAndrew Thangaraj8:14

       Yeah.

   13. SPSpeaker8:15

       Which is so confusing now.

   14. ATAndrew Thangaraj8:16

       Yeah.

   15. SPSpeaker8:16

       So-

   16. ATAndrew Thangaraj8:16

       Yeah

   17. SPSpeaker8:16

       ... can you give, give me an understanding of, is there any, like ... Okay, I'll leave it to you.

   18. ATAndrew Thangaraj8:21

       Yeah. So I think we used to have two different branches before. We used to have EE and ECE, EC before, and then eventually somebody saw the unification of the sine wave somewhere and then said it should all be the same. So, uh, today, I think if you look at other IITs, uh, except I think for a few, I think maybe Kharagpur offers still ECE and EEE, but pretty much all IITs now do only electrical engineering.

   19. SPSpeaker8:43

       Mm.

   20. ATAndrew Thangaraj8:43

       And, uh, NITs, I think, maybe still have that difference.

   21. SPSpeaker8:47

       Mm.

   22. ATAndrew Thangaraj8:48

       So, uh, in, in, in a basic way, if you want to think about it, it's about the voltage levels and the current levels in your circuits. If your voltage levels and current levels are very high, like, you know, 220 volts and a few amperes here, they have that kind of current and that kind of voltage you're dealing with, then you're in the high-power territory. So what you do there is dramatically different from the low voltage, low power territory. Like your phones, for instance, the kind of voltages and currents they deal with, maybe currents are slightly higher, but the voltages they deal with are very, very low, right? So, I mean, few volts maybe here and there. So what you can do in these two regimes end up being dramatically different. The size of the device itself has to be slightly bigger when the voltages go up.

   23. SPSpeaker9:30

       Mm.

   24. ATAndrew Thangaraj9:30

       The size of the device can be smaller in this sense, so miniaturization, all of these things come in. So it looks dramatically different-

   25. SPSpeaker9:37

       Mm

   26. ATAndrew Thangaraj9:37

       ... but, uh, the basic theory is sort of the same.

   27. SPSpeaker9:40

       At a undergrad level, maybe it can be the same course, and then-

   28. ATAndrew Thangaraj9:43

       Yeah

   29. SPSpeaker9:44

       ... as you specialize further.

   30. ATAndrew Thangaraj9:45

       Yeah.
7. 12:17 – 14:58

   Is Electrical Engineering at IIT Madras Hard?

   1. SPSpeaker12:17

      Very interesting. Professor, um, uh, I want to ask you, traditionally-

   2. ATAndrew Thangaraj12:21

      Mm

   3. SPSpeaker12:21

      ... even when I was a student-

   4. ATAndrew Thangaraj12:22

      [chuckles]

   5. SPSpeaker12:23

      ... uh, there was a conception, or there's a, uh, I don't know if it's true or not, but people say electrical in IIT Madras is very hard. Is it true? [laughing]

   6. ATAndrew Thangaraj12:31

      It used to be much, much harder than this. I think more than electrical, the subject being hard, I think the faculty were, had-- were very tough-

   7. SPSpeaker12:39

      Okay

   8. ATAndrew Thangaraj12:39

      ... in, um, some 25 years ago. They used to be very strict about grading. Uh, even though we had relative grading, some of our courses, the grades used to start with B.

   9. SPSpeaker12:47

      Okay.

   10. ATAndrew Thangaraj12:47

       And they would say: "None of you are good enough for me to give A." [laughing]

   11. SPSpeaker12:50

       [laughing]

   12. ATAndrew Thangaraj12:50

       So faculty used to be much, much harder at us. I think that, that's, that was a long time ago. Today, if you actually look at the grades, the EE grades are way, way better than the other departments.

   13. SPSpeaker13:00

       Oh.

   14. ATAndrew Thangaraj13:00

       So many more students get good grades now. Uh, faculty are much more kind, [chuckles] shall we say, shall we put it like that? So that part of it is not that difficult. But I think as far as the subject is concerned, it's a bit challenging because it's a strong mix of physics and math. So all the topics I mentioned, fundamentally, it's electromagnetics, right? So you have to know how to control electric field, magnetic field, using circuits and all that. And then there is- there are abstractions, which make it very mathematical. There is, first of all, the circuit theory abstraction, which converts the electromagnetics you see in certain situations in a circuit into equations, and then you solve those equations, and then you put them back, et cetera. So that abstraction itself is hard for many people, particularly when the circuit has nonlinear elements, it becomes very hard. So then you have the abstraction in communication, signal processing-

   15. SPSpeaker13:48

       Mm

   16. ATAndrew Thangaraj13:48

       ... where it is abstracted even further. Things become vectors, things become, you know, very abstract quantities which you deal with, and even bits, for instance, is very abstract in some sense. So we deal with that, our algorithms deal at that level, and then you have to convert it. So you have to be conversant with the physical reality, you have to be conversant with the abstraction, and you should be comfortable with the translation between the two. So that, I think, makes EE challenging, but, you know, what's the fun if there's no challenge, right? [chuckles]

   17. SPSpeaker14:15

       Yeah, as you were saying, I remember learning about the Fourier transform the first time-

   18. ATAndrew Thangaraj14:19

       Mm

   19. SPSpeaker14:19

       ... and getting utterly confused on, [laughing] on it all.

   20. ATAndrew Thangaraj14:21

       Very abstract, right?

   21. SPSpeaker14:22

       Yeah.

   22. ATAndrew Thangaraj14:22

       A very abstract view of a signal. You see a signal, but then the Fourier theory, which is at the heart of all of electrical engineering, is it's very abstract. It's, it's a, it's an equivalent to that signal, but it lives in some other space, and you can do something there and then convert it back into the reality, and then make it work, and then it works wonderfully. But if you don't have that comfort between going into the abstract space and coming back in-

   23. SPSpeaker14:43

       Right

   24. ATAndrew Thangaraj14:43

       ... then you get stuck.

   25. SPSpeaker14:45

       Understood. So you're saying, like, it's hard, but there's a reason it's hard-

   26. ATAndrew Thangaraj14:48

       Yeah

   27. SPSpeaker14:48

       ... and it's a good thing it's hard because-

   28. ATAndrew Thangaraj14:50

       And the faculty are there to help you. If you're really interested, today's faculty, I think, are very friendly.

   29. SPSpeaker14:54

       Yeah.

   30. ATAndrew Thangaraj14:54

       They work very closely with the students, and they're there to help you, my research.

8. 14:58 – 16:33

   The Genesis of NPTEL: Democratising Higher Education

   1. SPSpeaker14:58

      So cool. We spent so much time on electrical engineering. Uh, maybe we can, uh, move a bit. I think a, a lot of people at IIT Madras, um, know you for your work in the outreach side of things and the, the work that IIT Madras has done on the, on, on democratizing access to higher education, technical, higher technical education.

   2. ATAndrew Thangaraj15:19

      Mm.

   3. SPSpeaker15:20

      Could you tell us how it started?

   4. ATAndrew Thangaraj15:21

      Mm.

   5. SPSpeaker15:22

      And, uh, maybe we could go through the NPTEL days and how it's evolved now.

   6. ATAndrew Thangaraj15:25

      Yeah. It's a long story. Yeah, I'll try and make it short.

   7. SPSpeaker15:28

      Please go ahead-

   8. ATAndrew Thangaraj15:29

      [laughing]

   9. SPSpeaker15:29

      ... and make it as long as you want. We have a lot of-

   10. ATAndrew Thangaraj15:30

       And also, it's, it's hard to... I mean, uh, I mean, I hope I don't forget giving credit to everybody, uh, who deserves that credit. Well, a lot of people are involved. It's, it's, I mean, I happen to be the chair, of course, right now, but I think it's, it's, uh, not at all [chuckles] an exaggeration to say I'm definitely standing on shoulders of giants, right? So there's no doubt about it. So a couple of people early on who deserved a lot of credit is, uh, Professor Ananth, of course, and Professor Mangal Sundar. So two of them, back in 2000, okay, this is like 25 years ago, a lot of us don't remember how things were [chuckles] at that time, uh, 25 years ago, uh, proposed the NPTEL project to the ministry. Okay? And, uh, got it approved and, and got it funded. So NPTEL started under their, uh, leadership, so that was a really, really non-trivial, uh, change. So it started out by recording classes at IIT, putting it up on the portal, making it free for anybody to access. This is before YouTube and all that.

   11. SPSpeaker16:26

       Before internet was ubiquitous.

   12. ATAndrew Thangaraj16:28

       Pretty much, yeah.

   13. SPSpeaker16:29

       Yeah.

   14. ATAndrew Thangaraj16:29

       Yeah, they did all that. Uh, that's amazing. So, uh, they did that,

9. 16:33 – 18:25

   NPTEL's Evolution: Introducing Certification and Proctored Exams

   1. ATAndrew Thangaraj16:33

      and then YouTube came, and then YouTube, m- I mean, NPTEL went into YouTube, and it made it much more popular. And then around 2010, '11 or so, was when I joined NPTEL. So already, like some nearly 10 years had passed by the time I joined. And then what I did in NPTEL, primarily, was to bring in the certification element.

   2. SPSpeaker16:51

      So in the first phase of NPTEL-

   3. ATAndrew Thangaraj16:53

      Mm.

   4. SPSpeaker16:53

      ... I remember Professor Mangal Sundar.

   5. ATAndrew Thangaraj16:54

      Mm.

   6. SPSpeaker16:55

      I was on campus when he was pretty active.

   7. ATAndrew Thangaraj16:57

      Mm.

   8. SPSpeaker16:57

      So we used to have these recorded classes.

   9. ATAndrew Thangaraj17:00

      Yeah.

   10. SPSpeaker17:00

       So I also sat in some-

   11. ATAndrew Thangaraj17:01

       Yeah

   12. SPSpeaker17:01

       ... recorded classes.

   13. ATAndrew Thangaraj17:01

       Yeah.

   14. SPSpeaker17:02

       And I think, uh, a lot of the undergrad level courses that were being taught at IIT Madras were recorded full and full.

   15. ATAndrew Thangaraj17:08

       Yeah.

   16. SPSpeaker17:08

       Uh, from the first-

   17. ATAndrew Thangaraj17:09

       Exactly as it happened in class.

   18. SPSpeaker17:10

       Yeah.

   19. ATAndrew Thangaraj17:11

       And then put up on the portal.

   20. SPSpeaker17:12

       Right.

   21. ATAndrew Thangaraj17:13

       And people could see it. So the reasoning was, there are a lot of colleges in India, a lot of people go to many colleges, and, and it's, it's hard to hire the teachers that IITs have everywhere. I mean, that same level of quality is very hard to hire. The finances don't work, so many things don't work. So, uh, if you record the classes that happen here, then people everywhere get a chance to at least get a peep into the classes at IIT.

   22. SPSpeaker17:36

       Right.

   23. ATAndrew Thangaraj17:36

       Because otherwise, IITs are these really tough places to get in.

   24. SPSpeaker17:40

       A lot of colleges would like, sort of, uh-

   25. ATAndrew Thangaraj17:42

       Yeah

   26. SPSpeaker17:42

       ... put them on DVDs.

   27. ATAndrew Thangaraj17:43

       Yes.

   28. SPSpeaker17:44

       Uh-

   29. ATAndrew Thangaraj17:44

       Yeah, yeah

   30. SPSpeaker17:44

       ... and, and I know you're saying that faculties are hard to hire, and so on, but actually, the behavior that I, uh, we have seen in that 2005 to 2010 period-
10. 18:25 – 22:37

    Why add Proctored Exams?

    1. ATAndrew Thangaraj18:25

       also became a very popular word.

    2. SPSpeaker18:26

       And I want to stress this.

    3. ATAndrew Thangaraj18:28

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SPSpeaker18:28

       So NPTEL started doing the lecture recording and spreading it out before a good one decade before MOOCs became-

    5. ATAndrew Thangaraj18:35

       Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, no doubt about, no doubt about it. It's, it was so popular even then. Now, when MOOCs became popular, of course, there was a big buzz around it, hype around it, saying, "You know, everything will become a MOOC, and MOOC is the only thing that's out there," et cetera, et cetera. And, uh, I mean, so it, it is good to get caught up in the hype and, you know, do something about it. But I think we also wanted to do, uh, some sort of certification around NPTEL. So this came also independent of the MOOCs. It's a lot of people came and started asking us, "You know, I've seen all your lectures that you've put up, and I think I have a command over the subject. Can you give me something to sh- you know, show that I've done this? Can you give me a certificate? Can you do some certification around it?" So at that time, we were thinking about how best to do it, you know? How do you do this? How do you, uh, do a certification based on online content? And I think the MOOCs guys were doing it purely online. They were doing the exams online, and somehow we thought that wouldn't get traction. No, that wouldn't be something that would become mainstream. People may not like it, at least in a country, country as vast as India, with so many people who really need such certification. We wanted to create something which would be... Which would have- which has a chance of building up a reputation, right? Right. So for that, we said it has to be followed by a proctored exam, and you should do certification only after a proctored exam, not just based on an online exam. So that also, I think, for the Indian context, it was an important step to do.

    6. SPSpeaker20:02

       So you're using a technical word. What is proctored exam?

    7. ATAndrew Thangaraj20:05

       Oh, proctor is basically you go to a center, sit down-

    8. SPSpeaker20:07

       Okay

    9. ATAndrew Thangaraj20:07

       ... and somebody is invigilating. You write an exam under controlled circumstances-

    10. SPSpeaker20:10

        Okay

    11. ATAndrew Thangaraj20:11

        ... not in your own house, with no supervision.

    12. SPSpeaker20:13

        Right. So the chances of somebody trying to cheat the system is-

    13. ATAndrew Thangaraj20:16

        Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think if you want to mainstream things, that has to happen, because all college exams pretty much are proctored, right?

    14. SPSpeaker20:23

        Yeah.

    15. ATAndrew Thangaraj20:23

        And you don't let people do, uh, whatever they please. So, so we devised a system. This is again, an NPTEL effort. It was a pan-IIT effort. Uh, I was involved in it from day one, and, uh, we put together a system where we would take these NPTEL lectures, teach them like a MOOC for about eight weeks, 12 weeks, like that, and then at the end of it, we would conduct an exam. This exam would be like the JEE exam or GATE exam or something. People would go to a center, write the exam, and if they do well in it, they get a certificate in that course. So this is something that we started, and we started in a small way in 2014. Uh, we picked a very popular course, Programming Data Structures Algorithms, which everybody needs, and we put it out there. That's the first course we ran. Some one lakh people signed up, enrolled, and about some, uh, 3,000 or so wrote the exam. So you can see the fall, right? [chuckles] People, people sign up for the buzz, and then they realize, "Okay, no, I can handle this, I cannot handle this," [chuckles] et cetera. So, and then some, I think if I'm not wrong, thousand-odd got certificates. Okay? So that started in 2014, and slowly, I think we- this idea of a course followed by a proctored exam, followed by a certification, had some inherent value in it, and it started becoming popular. So colleges started adopting. Faculty in IIT started believing in it, and it started picking up steam, picking up steam slowly, and, and it started increasing and increasing and increasing and increasing. Today, after like nearly 10 years of running it, 10, 11 years of running it, every semester, we do... I mean, last semester, we ran some 800 courses. Okay, 800-odd courses in the same format. Some 30 lakh people enrolled in these courses. Some 9.8 lakh registered to write the exam.

    16. SPSpeaker22:08

        Wow!

    17. ATAndrew Thangaraj22:08

        You can see the consumption, [chuckles] right? And out of that 9.8 lakhs-

    18. SPSpeaker22:12

        That's a million kids.

    19. ATAndrew Thangaraj22:12

        Yeah, nearly a million kids in just one semester, right? We've, we've overtaken GATE now very easily. So, uh, so inherently, people saw value in it. Government saw value in it. They created the SWAYAM program and portal around such certification, and we, we now run SWAYAM. I mean, the IITM CODE office runs the SWAYAM portal of the ministry. So w- this program expanded, and a lot of colleges today do these courses for credit transfer,

11. 22:37 – 26:00

    SWAYAM and Credit Transfer: Mainstreaming Online Learning

    1. ATAndrew Thangaraj22:37

       so-

    2. SPSpeaker22:37

       Okay, okay, okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. Um, you introduced SWAYAM, so I was waiting for the moment for you to introduce SWAYAM. So maybe you could just tell us what is SWAYAM?

    3. ATAndrew Thangaraj22:44

       Yeah. So NPTEL started certification in 2014, right? So it became a very popular thing, and the ministry saw an opportunity around 2016, '17, to expand it to beyond technology and all of that, all areas, bring in other players, get them all to be part of this course offering plus certification initiative. So the, the SWAYAM initiative started in, in 2017, the SWAYAM portal also started.

    4. SPSpeaker23:07

       Okay.

    5. ATAndrew Thangaraj23:08

       Mm.

    6. SPSpeaker23:08

       So right now, if I am a student in some other university-

    7. ATAndrew Thangaraj23:11

       Mm

    8. SPSpeaker23:11

       ... I would do an NPTEL course-

    9. ATAndrew Thangaraj23:13

       Yeah

    10. SPSpeaker23:13

        ... give the, uh, give this exam-

    11. ATAndrew Thangaraj23:15

        Yeah

    12. SPSpeaker23:16

        ... and then via SWAYAM, transfer those credits onto my grade card?

    13. ATAndrew Thangaraj23:20

        Yeah. So SWAYAM is like the MOOC portal.

    14. SPSpeaker23:22

        Okay.

    15. ATAndrew Thangaraj23:22

        So you, you do the course on SWAYAM, and because the ministry is doing it, because everybody's approved it, a lot of people find it easy to approve credit transfer through SWAYAM.

    16. SPSpeaker23:30

        Oh.

    17. ATAndrew Thangaraj23:31

        Right? So you can do a course, and if it's in your approved list of courses that for which you get credit transfer, then your institute will give you credit for that. So that's one of the reasons why it's very, very popular, and you can see our idea of mainstreaming the MOOCs has, has now materialized.

    18. SPSpeaker23:47

        Right.

    19. ATAndrew Thangaraj23:47

        This has not materialized in many other countries.

    20. SPSpeaker23:50

        Yeah.

    21. ATAndrew Thangaraj23:50

        Many other countries probably didn't need it, but we really needed it, and it has happened.

    22. SPSpeaker23:55

        Alternatively, if I, if, uh, uh, one university has to cre- do credit transfer with another university-

    23. ATAndrew Thangaraj24:00

        Mm

    24. SPSpeaker24:00

        ... they have to have an MOU between them and them.

    25. ATAndrew Thangaraj24:03

        Yes.

    26. SPSpeaker24:03

        They have to look at each other's courses-

    27. ATAndrew Thangaraj24:05

        Yes

    28. SPSpeaker24:05

        ... approve each other's courses.

    29. ATAndrew Thangaraj24:06

        Yes.

    30. SPSpeaker24:06

        And it's a very high involvement-
12. 26:00 – 30:28

    Why Brilliant Students Miss Out on IIT - The JEE Problem

    1. SPSpeaker26:00

       your office started offering, uh, a BS degree, right?

    2. ATAndrew Thangaraj26:04

       Yeah.

    3. SPSpeaker26:04

       So how did that transition happen? Because I feel like you are telling me this story-

    4. ATAndrew Thangaraj26:08

       Mm

    5. SPSpeaker26:08

       ... but in that process, you have built one of India's largest, or maybe India's largest, edtech.

    6. ATAndrew Thangaraj26:13

       Mm.

    7. SPSpeaker26:14

       Right?

    8. ATAndrew Thangaraj26:14

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    9. SPSpeaker26:15

       Far outsizing all the big names we have heard.

    10. ATAndrew Thangaraj26:18

        Yeah.

    11. SPSpeaker26:18

        So you have to tell me this journey.

    12. ATAndrew Thangaraj26:20

        See, first thing is, I think when a, when a university gets into edtech, it's much more interesting, because universities can give degrees, right? And, uh, universities know how to, you know, cultivate relationships with students, how to bring students together, so they, they know that a lot. A lo- a lot of edtechs focus on professionals a lot, and they give certificates, so it's, it's a different crowd. Uh, so, so that way, I think a university getting into edtech is, is, I think, very important, and, and the more we do it, the better it will be. So now NPTEL gave us the confidence of being able to run a large-scale, uh, you know, certification, sort of edtech-like effort, okay? Around, uh, credit-worthy courses that are tied to the college curriculum, not, you know, independent, uh, job-oriented stuff, et cetera. But, uh, nevertheless, it gave us confidence with the processes, like, you know, how to run your LMS, how to run a workflow with people coming in, registering, paying money, you know, dealing with all of that. So all those operations, how to set up the question paper, how to set up the exams. Operationally, we got a lot of confidence. A lot of credit to Bharati for that, because she runs really the operations in all of that.

    13. SPSpeaker27:26

        She's absolutely amazing.

    14. ATAndrew Thangaraj27:27

        Yeah.

    15. SPSpeaker27:27

        I've interacted with her a few times.

    16. ATAndrew Thangaraj27:28

        Yeah.

    17. SPSpeaker27:28

        She's amazing.

    18. ATAndrew Thangaraj27:29

        Yeah, so she's very good at that. So sh- that's, that's something that's very, very, very important. We also lucked out with the right people. And also I should say, uh, we keep saying IITM is Best Place To Build, right? I think IITM also has a unique infrastructure, where they allow faculty to build projects, to build, you know, hire fa- uh, hire people of different types, and then build these programs. Particularly when they see the program is becoming interesting, they're able to allow it to grow. I, I, I'm not the only example here. You'll see every other person you've spoken to would repeat the same thing, right?

    19. SPSpeaker27:58

        Yeah.

    20. ATAndrew Thangaraj27:59

        So IIT has... IITM, I should say. This is IITM now, [chuckles] you know? IITM has a unique position among IITs in really being able to facilitate it, where the, the rules are carefully done. It's not like we violate any rules or something, but the rules are done to facilitate such scaling, and such scaling is what can create impact. Now, that is, that part is also very important too. So now, after NPTEL, we got the confidence about one thing, right? Because a lot of people used to top NPTEL courses, and we used to interact with them, and these are people who didn't study in an IIT, right? So they didn't get through JEE, but they do so well in an NPTEL exam, and, and they do well in life after that. So then, uh, then the natural question that comes is, right, w- we admit students into IIT with a very tough entrance process, really, really hard, one of the-

    21. SPSpeaker28:45

        Yeah

    22. ATAndrew Thangaraj28:45

        ... hardest things in the world, definitely.

    23. SPSpeaker28:47

        Uh, in addition to technical skills, it also tests, uh, rigor-

    24. ATAndrew Thangaraj28:51

        Mm

    25. SPSpeaker28:51

        ... and it tests, uh, how much, uh, support you have from your family to do this. [laughing]

    26. ATAndrew Thangaraj28:55

        Money today.

    27. SPSpeaker28:56

        Money, yeah, 'cause you need that.

    28. ATAndrew Thangaraj28:58

        That's a very important thing that has happened over time, right? Of course, if you're really brilliant, that's okay, I mean, you come through. But, uh, for a, for a typical student, if you look at it, the kind of money and effort that is involved in JEE coaching today is tremendous. And, and in fact, a, a lot of us are very disillusioned by the coaching industry in some sense. And, and some of them are good, some of them focus on the right things, but some of them are brutal.

    29. SPSpeaker29:20

        A lot of great students-

    30. ATAndrew Thangaraj29:21

        Yeah
13. 30:28 – 34:58

    IITM Making Education Accessible - BS Degree Program

    1. ATAndrew Thangaraj30:28

       scaled.

    2. SPSpeaker30:28

       Yeah.

    3. ATAndrew Thangaraj30:28

       I, I, the, the teaching, learning that happens in one course and the curriculum itself possibly can be scaled, but the dramatic change in the, in the mindset and the growth of an individual in four years of close-knit life together, that I think is tough to scale. You know, I mean, I, I don't know if anybody can figure out how to scale it. Uh, maybe we can scale that, maybe we can't scale that, but at least NPTEL gave us the confidence that we can scale this part.

    4. SPSpeaker30:54

       Okay.

    5. ATAndrew Thangaraj30:55

       So whatever we can scale, we should scale, I think, right? So I think it's- it gives value to the economy, value to the country, makes it accessible for so many people. You're not so much of an ivory tower, at least, right?

    6. SPSpeaker31:06

       Yeah. I just want to underscore that what can be scaled, should be scaled-

    7. ATAndrew Thangaraj31:09

       Yeah

    8. SPSpeaker31:10

       ... is a very important attitude to have.

    9. ATAndrew Thangaraj31:12

       Yeah.

    10. SPSpeaker31:12

        Because when-

    11. ATAndrew Thangaraj31:12

        Yeah

    12. SPSpeaker31:12

        ... when 20 years back, 30 years back-

    13. ATAndrew Thangaraj31:14

        Mm

    14. SPSpeaker31:14

        ... the IIT system, there was these words used, you know, we are an island of excellence.

    15. ATAndrew Thangaraj31:18

        Yeah.

    16. SPSpeaker31:18

        And there was almost a sense that we are-

    17. ATAndrew Thangaraj31:20

        Yeah

    18. SPSpeaker31:20

        ... excluding-

    19. ATAndrew Thangaraj31:21

        Yeah

    20. SPSpeaker31:22

        more than-

    21. ATAndrew Thangaraj31:22

        And, and y- you would have met... I've, I have met people who never ever went into an IIT, and are amazing.

    22. SPSpeaker31:28

        Yeah, exactly.

    23. ATAndrew Thangaraj31:29

        Right? Excellent in every possible way. They, they're no, no worse off than any of the best students I've seen. So it, it's possible to cultivate this other stuff, but it's tough to scale that. Maybe they have other ways of cultivating it, I don't know. Maybe I will, I will try my best to get there, but I may not get there. But-

    24. SPSpeaker31:46

        Mm

    25. ATAndrew Thangaraj31:46

        ... at least the curriculum part, why, what we teach here? Because I think, see, it's also important to note that how college works in India, right? See, um, IITs get 33% of the ministry's higher education budget.

    26. SPSpeaker31:59

        Okay.

    27. ATAndrew Thangaraj31:59

        And IITs account for less than 0.2% of the UG enrollment.

    28. SPSpeaker32:04

        Mm.

    29. ATAndrew Thangaraj32:04

        Pretty much no student. And so, so government spends a lot of effort on making the small group be ultra great. Okay, which is good, uh, um, I don't want to say anything no to that. But what happens in that bargain is there is a large group of people, if you take, like, for instance, marks versus rank in JEE Advanced-

    30. SPSpeaker32:22

        Mm
14. 34:58 – 35:00

    The Structure of the IIT Madras BS Degree Program

    1. ATAndrew Thangaraj34:58

       that instead of doing

15. 35:00 – 37:00

    Foundation → Diploma → Degree - The New Model Explained

    1. ATAndrew Thangaraj35:00

       the filtering in the beginning and ensuring that only the very best of the best come in, and then pretty much letting them all sail through to the end and get their degree, we have a different model. The model is, we admit a larger group of people who we think have a chance of getting through our program. Okay, we don't measure everything down to the bottom very strongly. We only measure, okay, can you pass the kind of courses I teach in my first semester? Can you pass my first exam? Like, how many-

    2. SPSpeaker35:30

       Students would that be?

    3. ATAndrew Thangaraj35:30

       So right now, I mean, the program is very popular. [chuckles] So over the past four, five years, some two lakh people have applied, right?

    4. SPSpeaker35:36

       Okay, so two lakh people have applied to the-

    5. ATAndrew Thangaraj35:39

       To the qualifier, as we call it.

    6. SPSpeaker35:40

       Qualifier.

    7. ATAndrew Thangaraj35:41

       Yeah. And about one-fourth qualify. Okay, so you can see already there is some filtering, but we don't filter down to, like, you know, some ridiculous 0.1% or something, [chuckles] you know? One-fourth qualify. But what happens after qualification, they get into a stage which we call foundation stage.

    8. SPSpeaker36:00

       Okay.

    9. ATAndrew Thangaraj36:00

       They don't get into the BS degree directly, they get into this foundation stage. They're in the BS degree, but it's in the foundation stage. And these are eight courses: math, stats, and, uh, programming, because this is a data science course. That's what it is.

    10. SPSpeaker36:13

        The BS course offers two degrees.

    11. ATAndrew Thangaraj36:16

        Two degrees now. One is in data science-

    12. SPSpeaker36:18

        Data science

    13. ATAndrew Thangaraj36:18

        ... the other is in electronic systems.

    14. SPSpeaker36:20

        So we are now talking about the data science BS course?

    15. ATAndrew Thangaraj36:22

        Yeah. Bo- both have similar structure.

    16. SPSpeaker36:24

        Okay.

    17. ATAndrew Thangaraj36:24

        Structure is very similar.

    18. SPSpeaker36:25

        Okay.

    19. ATAndrew Thangaraj36:25

        So they get into a foundation-

    20. SPSpeaker36:27

        Okay

    21. ATAndrew Thangaraj36:27

        ... where we build the foundation that is needed for the program.

    22. SPSpeaker36:30

        Okay.

    23. ATAndrew Thangaraj36:30

        So in data science, they would learn math, stats, programming. In electronics, they will learn a little bit more math, some circuits, some, uh, you know, things like that. Okay?... foundation is, uh, tough. Well, not so tough, but nevertheless, it also filters.

    24. SPSpeaker36:46

        It's tougher than the qualifier?

    25. ATAndrew Thangaraj36:47

        Tougher than the qualifiers. They have to do eight classes, do more rigor, a lot of things. Only about half of those who qualify make it past foundation.

    26. SPSpeaker36:55

        At this point, I guess what is happening is that some students will also get to realize how easy or

16. 37:00 – 39:42

    Skills First, Theory Later - Why This Program is Different

    1. SPSpeaker37:00

       tough the course is.

    2. ATAndrew Thangaraj37:00

       Yeah, it is not for them. Find the fit, right?

    3. SPSpeaker37:03

       Yeah.

    4. ATAndrew Thangaraj37:03

       See, right now, one of the flaws in the JEE system is you don't find any fit with the subject you learn.

    5. SPSpeaker37:08

       Yeah.

    6. ATAndrew Thangaraj37:08

       Right? You come in, you got a rank, so you're studying metallurgical engineering. And you, you may have absolutely no connection to metallurgical engineering, but you study it because IIT gives you so many other things. You pick up all of those things, you get the degree, and you leave. So this happens now, I think in IIT, at least to one-third of the students, this happens, right?

    7. SPSpeaker37:25

       Uh, and I want to just, uh, uh, emphasize that that happens to CS students. [chuckles]

    8. ATAndrew Thangaraj37:28

       CS students also. [chuckles]

    9. SPSpeaker37:29

       They enter CS, and they have... I- I-

    10. ATAndrew Thangaraj37:31

        Yeah, yeah

    11. SPSpeaker37:32

        ... feel sad about it-

    12. ATAndrew Thangaraj37:32

        Yeah

    13. SPSpeaker37:32

        ... because you've got the best package in the world.

    14. ATAndrew Thangaraj37:34

        Yeah.

    15. SPSpeaker37:34

        You have any choice.

    16. ATAndrew Thangaraj37:36

        Yeah.

    17. SPSpeaker37:36

        You could go anywhere and do anything-

    18. ATAndrew Thangaraj37:38

        Yeah

    19. SPSpeaker37:38

        ... and because of, like, sort of a peer pressure-

    20. ATAndrew Thangaraj37:40

        Peer pressure

    21. SPSpeaker37:41

        ... then you join CS, and then you realize-

    22. ATAndrew Thangaraj37:42

        Then you don't like it, right?

    23. SPSpeaker37:43

        Yeah.

    24. ATAndrew Thangaraj37:43

        Then your, your heart is empty, as people say, and it's not, not a good feeling to have. So, so we didn't want to do that, and we've kept the foundation price very low.

    25. SPSpeaker37:52

        Okay.

    26. ATAndrew Thangaraj37:52

        The cost of the entire foundation is, like, 30K or something, 30K.

    27. SPSpeaker37:56

        Okay.

    28. ATAndrew Thangaraj37:56

        So it's, it's, uh, it's kept very low so that people can try it out.

    29. SPSpeaker38:00

        Yeah, so that, that 30K is the price of sort of figuring out, "Is this for me?"

    30. ATAndrew Thangaraj38:03

        Is this for you? Yeah. If this is not for you, you try something else. If it's for you, you carry on. That's about half. Then comes the slightly tough part. Okay, so this is the toughest part of the program. It's called the diploma level. So the philosophy is, we give hands-on skill early in the program, okay? So after foundation, you pick up skills. You don't do theory again. So a typical BTech program will do a lot of theory in the beginning, and only towards the end, you start actually picking up skills. So here we do skills. So in the data science program, you'll learn about programming, how to build an application, full stack development, all of that. And you'll also learn how to build a ML model, how to get it to work with data. You'll also do theory. A little bit of theory will be there to do enough skills, okay?
17. 39:42 – 42:00

    Affordability, Impact, and Quality of the BS Program

    1. SPSpeaker39:42

       2,000.

    2. ATAndrew Thangaraj39:42

       Yeah, yeah.

    3. SPSpeaker39:43

       Yeah.

    4. ATAndrew Thangaraj39:43

       It comes down to that kind of number.

    5. SPSpeaker39:45

       And I remember at the beginning, you had mentioned some numbers, uh, 1 lakh people in their first year gave [chuckles] uh-

    6. ATAndrew Thangaraj39:52

       No, that is the NPTEL start, right?

    7. SPSpeaker39:54

       Correct.

    8. ATAndrew Thangaraj39:54

       Yeah.

    9. SPSpeaker39:54

       But there also it was 1 lakh to 1,000.

    10. ATAndrew Thangaraj39:56

        Uh.

    11. SPSpeaker39:56

        This is also 1% kind of-

    12. ATAndrew Thangaraj39:58

        Yeah, yeah.

    13. SPSpeaker39:58

        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    14. ATAndrew Thangaraj39:58

        Okay. So once they cross the diploma level, if they want to, they seem to be going through and getting the degree. Many people exit at the diploma level. So why they exit? That's because they already have another degree. Many of them do this in parallel with another degree.

    15. SPSpeaker40:11

        Mm.

    16. ATAndrew Thangaraj40:12

        So they have another degree, they've picked up all the skills they want. They have a degree, they leave at that point. Quite a big number does that also. They have a job, et cetera, and they leave.

    17. SPSpeaker40:20

        Well, just to underscore that-

    18. ATAndrew Thangaraj40:22

        Mm

    19. SPSpeaker40:22

        ... i- in recently, I've- what I've understood is, it's only recently that the UGC allowed-

    20. ATAndrew Thangaraj40:27

        Yeah, yeah

    21. SPSpeaker40:27

        ... two degrees to be pursued-

    22. ATAndrew Thangaraj40:29

        To be pursued-

    23. SPSpeaker40:29

        ... at the same time

    24. ATAndrew Thangaraj40:30

        ... at the same time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this sort of happened sort of when we started.

    25. SPSpeaker40:33

        Okay.

    26. ATAndrew Thangaraj40:33

        Around 2022, I think they started that. So many people get out in the diploma level. Some of them will feel like it's stay around and get the degree. That number reduces further. So it looks to me like, at most, we may be graduating about 1,000 people a year in the degree level. That's the sort of number you'll get.

    27. SPSpeaker40:50

        The program has already had... This will be the second convocation year, right?

    28. ATAndrew Thangaraj40:54

        Yep, yep. The people will be getting degrees.

    29. SPSpeaker40:56

        Nice. [chuckles] Congratulations, Professor. This easily makes you the largest edtech, uh, at the most reasonable cost.

    30. ATAndrew Thangaraj41:03

        Mm.
18. 42:00 – 47:37

    From Ordinary Backgrounds to Extraordinary Careers - Real Impact Stories

    1. ATAndrew Thangaraj42:00

       ordinary backgrounds, really ordinary, father and mother working in very low-level jobs, who cannot even afford to go to a good school, forget about JEE coaching. And those kind of kids are in the program, have done well, have gotten jobs now, and they have a chance to bring up their family, society, all of that. And that impact is, is, I mean, it, it's one of the most, uh, satisfying things, at least, that I've done, uh, in my life and career that I can look forward- look back upon.

    2. SPSpeaker42:30

       Professor, that is amazing. I feel like sometimes we live in these worlds where there's an impression that, uh, you, uh, that, you know, if you democratize education a lot, then the quality will come down. But you're saying that that absolutely doesn't happen. We are able to hit-

    3. ATAndrew Thangaraj42:44

       ... yeah, so you, you have to understand what is quality, right? So how do you define it? You gotta caref- you have to be a little bit careful about it, right? See, if you say I, I do this impossibly hard exam, I filter it down to a small number of very smart people, then there is no quality improvement that your program itself is doing outside of just scraping them together and then giving them, not ruining things, right? You don't ruin everything. You just keep everything together and be- keep it liberal and-

    4. SPSpeaker43:09

       One second

    5. ATAndrew Thangaraj43:10

       ... keep them to go, right? So that's all you have to do. And, and-

    6. SPSpeaker43:13

       Right

    7. ATAndrew Thangaraj43:13

       ... that is one type of quality where I would say, frankly, we didn't have a role, right? In BTech quality, if you talk about it.

    8. SPSpeaker43:21

       Yeah.

    9. ATAndrew Thangaraj43:21

       In BS, on the other hand, there are people who, who would have had no chance of walking into a data analytics job or anything like that. We have taken them from zero, literally, and given them every single thing that they know, and now they're ready for jobs. They're doing MTechs in IITs, they're doing PhDs here, there, and the other. Look at the transformation. And if, if you say, if you, if you, if you go ask this guy who graduated with a BS degree something about some, you know, a tough algebra problem or an integration, maybe he doesn't know, right?

    10. SPSpeaker43:54

        Mm.

    11. ATAndrew Thangaraj43:54

        So is that, is that the only goal? I don't know, right? So you have to, you have to redefine your goals carefully. And under that kind of a redefined goal, these guys are amazing in quality and, and just attitude, how hard they work, and, and you can see, see that around. And the good ones from the BS program, I think, are really, really good today. I've interacted with, with so many of them. Of course, the BTech students have a different quality to them, right? So they've, they've come from a different background, and they have a different type of thing. Maybe they can work on really tough problems of a different caliber, et cetera. Maybe the BS students will work on different types of problems, and all types of problems are there in the industry today. If you go to a company, company doesn't want to hire all BTechs with [chuckles] all intense problem-solving abilities, right? So you also want people who can execute well, digi- diligently, and also understand the theory enough to make contributions. So I think you have to broaden the outlook of w- who you're trying to produce.

    12. SPSpeaker44:48

        Okay. I'm gonna try and attempt and summarize some of the things you said.

    13. ATAndrew Thangaraj44:51

        Yeah.

    14. SPSpeaker44:51

        See, I wanna know if I got it right, okay?

    15. ATAndrew Thangaraj44:53

        Yeah.

    16. SPSpeaker44:53

        You started by saying that we inherited this IIT JEE system.

    17. ATAndrew Thangaraj44:57

        Yeah.

    18. SPSpeaker44:58

        Uh, I... It's not like IIT Madras had a role to play.

    19. ATAndrew Thangaraj45:01

        Yeah.

    20. SPSpeaker45:01

        And there's a lot of quality, there's a lot of filtering that happens at JEE.

    21. ATAndrew Thangaraj45:04

        Yeah.

    22. SPSpeaker45:04

        And a lot of students who get through JEE may have, even without IIT, done very well.

    23. ATAndrew Thangaraj45:08

        Yeah, true.

    24. SPSpeaker45:09

        Right? So-

    25. ATAndrew Thangaraj45:09

        If they had been in a liberal environment where-

    26. SPSpeaker45:12

        Yeah

    27. ATAndrew Thangaraj45:13

        ... nothing was messed up with them [chuckles] .

    28. SPSpeaker45:14

        Right. Right.

    29. ATAndrew Thangaraj45:14

        Right.

    30. SPSpeaker45:15

        So if their college experience didn't ruin them-
19. 47:37 – 52:01

    Future Programs and IIT Madras's Unique Position

    1. SPSpeaker47:37

       started.

    2. ATAndrew Thangaraj47:37

       It's just started. It's much smaller in scale, [chuckles] by the way. Not too many people, uh, jump into electronics as easily as they jump into data science. It's much smaller. We have about 2,000 applications a year, and again, the same type of filtering is happening through a qualifier, through foundation, through diploma. We are waiting to see. We, we... I, I'm, I cannot talk about numbers of that program yet.

    3. SPSpeaker47:59

       Okay. And will there be more programs that are coming up?

    4. ATAndrew Thangaraj48:01

       So we are thinking, we are planning, we are debating what to do. Now, I think we understand the process very well. Uh, we are trying to see, uh, you know, the economics of the situation, the requirement of what kind of people. See, data science, clearly a lot of people are required. So only when you need large-scale employment, such programs make sense, in my opinion. So if, if, if you need only smaller scale, anyway, people are happy. So what, what, what, uh, disruption are you [chuckles] going to do?

    5. SPSpeaker48:26

       Yeah.

    6. ATAndrew Thangaraj48:26

       In the data science AI area, it looked like people are looking for, uh, qualified people, so that is, uh, something important. Uh, electronic systems, in a way, needs people, maybe not in the same scale as data science. It needs people.

    7. SPSpeaker48:39

       ... I get what you're saying. In many of the engineering disciplines, we already have enough-

    8. ATAndrew Thangaraj48:42

       Uh, yeah, yeah

    9. SPSpeaker48:43

       - uh, courses from-

    10. ATAndrew Thangaraj48:44

        Yeah

    11. SPSpeaker48:44

        - reputed universities.

    12. ATAndrew Thangaraj48:46

        Yeah, it seems to be okay. Maybe in core engineering, uh, the only thing we have to see now, I think one of the interesting thing that's happening now is all private engineering colleges are closing down their civil engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, all of that. So I think if we have to keep the minimum number [chuckles] in play, we may have to do something in the core area. I don't know how we will do it. It's, it's very hard. It doesn't scale that easily, and we have to... Electronic systems, for instance, we bring them to campus every semester for labs.

    13. SPSpeaker49:11

        Okay.

    14. ATAndrew Thangaraj49:12

        So like that, we may have to do. I don't know, that is one thing. But we- I think the more interesting thing is non-engineering. I think economics, finance, uh, commerce, these kind of areas have the largest potential. We are thinking we'll partner with the, some of the top colleges in that area and see if we can do a joint sort of interesting degree, maybe in economics, finance, management, data science, commerce, some combination like that-

    15. SPSpeaker49:38

        Mm

    16. ATAndrew Thangaraj49:38

        ... which I think is a much larger group than engineering.

    17. SPSpeaker49:41

        As you're saying it, I'm thinking when edtechs, when a privately funded edtech thinks about this-

    18. ATAndrew Thangaraj49:46

        See

    19. SPSpeaker49:46

        ... mm, they have to move at a particular pace because the capital is demanding them to-

    20. ATAndrew Thangaraj49:51

        Yeah

    21. SPSpeaker49:51

        ... and they ho- they don't have the luxury of thinking-

    22. ATAndrew Thangaraj49:54

        Yeah

    23. SPSpeaker49:54

        ... this through.

    24. ATAndrew Thangaraj49:55

        Yeah, yeah.

    25. SPSpeaker49:55

        But the way you are saying the programs, NPTEL started 25 years back, then you had a decade of experience in building courses, then a decade of experience in-

    26. ATAndrew Thangaraj50:03

        Yeah

    27. SPSpeaker50:03

        ... Uh, and so there's a lot of, like, uh, you have the time to think things through-

    28. ATAndrew Thangaraj50:09

        Yeah, yeah

    29. SPSpeaker50:09

        ... without, you know, just-

    30. ATAndrew Thangaraj50:10

        Yeah. Yeah, yeah. See, I'm answerable to the Senate and the board of IIT, which is very, very different from what the edtechs are answerable to, right? So they have to show quarter and quar- quarter-on-quarter numbers to keep their board happy, their investors happy, and people who invest in them are expecting returns, which is higher than, uh, you know, fixed, uh, fixed deposit returns [chuckles] or something, right? So, uh, uh, you can't even just give them that, uh, returns, right? So on the other hand, for us, the- definitely our interest is in nation building, right? Uh, at some, at a broad level, that's our interest. Now, what is, what is good for the young people, the huge number of young people who are coming out of the country? How do you equip them with better skills? How do you make them more employable? How do you give them a brand that they can, you know, that they can bring up their societies, uh, you know, uplift the societies around them? So that's, that's our idea. And we are also in a good situation, you know, I mean, we have wonderful IITM ecosystem to take advantage of.
20. 52:01 – 54:10

    Engineering Physics vs. Electrical Engineering BTech

    1. SPSpeaker52:01

       reading my notes, um, I'm just thinking if we can dial back to the BTech program.

    2. ATAndrew Thangaraj52:06

       Mm, mm.

    3. SPSpeaker52:06

       Uh, of course, you are a professor in electrical engineering.

    4. ATAndrew Thangaraj52:09

       Mm.

    5. SPSpeaker52:09

       And, um, uh, uh, in, in IIT Madras, there's a course called, uh, engineering physics-

    6. ATAndrew Thangaraj52:14

       Mm, mm

    7. SPSpeaker52:15

       ... which is a high overlap, right?

    8. ATAndrew Thangaraj52:17

       Mm.

    9. SPSpeaker52:17

       So, um, how is that different from electrical?

    10. ATAndrew Thangaraj52:20

        So, uh, I should, I should say, [chuckles] the first thing I should say is, I don't know entirely how the curriculum is different, but I've seen EP students in all my courses, right? [chuckles] Every course I teach has EP students.

    11. SPSpeaker52:30

        Okay.

    12. ATAndrew Thangaraj52:30

        So I think there is tremendous overlap between the EE and EP curriculum, number one. Second thing I'll say is, some of the EP students I've met here have been some of the most amazing students, easily the best students I've met.

    13. SPSpeaker52:42

        Mm.

    14. ATAndrew Thangaraj52:42

        Somehow, I think even though their ranks are not as high, they, they end up being slightly lower in rank, but the EP program, the way it is structured, the way the students are, the way that group is, the way the seniors are, they, they're all so amazing. They, they work very hard, they, they understand things conceptually very well, and then they, they're not scared of the math. They seem to know the math very well. I think they do slightly more math courses than the [chuckles] EE guys, I think. I'm not sure.

    15. SPSpeaker53:08

        Mm.

    16. ATAndrew Thangaraj53:09

        So I would say between the EE and EP program, I mean, I don't know, I would even pick the EP program better. [laughing] The EP program-

    17. SPSpeaker53:16

        I-

    18. ATAndrew Thangaraj53:16

        ... it was, I think, at least the, from my vantage point, uh, the EP students are amazing. Some... I'm, I'm not joking. I mean, I've, I've had EP students, uh, who work with me, publish papers, go into research, go into top-notch companies, and amazing.

    19. SPSpeaker53:31

        Okay, okay. And, and do, uh, students from other departments like mechanical or civil, do they take electives into your course?

    20. ATAndrew Thangaraj53:38

        Uh, I think that's harder. It's harder. I think not many of them do. I think the, the background that is needed in terms of mathematics is covered only by in EE and EP.

    21. SPSpeaker53:47

        Okay, understood. And I guess you're, you're teaching a little more advanced course, so maybe-

    22. ATAndrew Thangaraj53:51

        Yeah

    23. SPSpeaker53:51

        ... some of the other electrical courses.

    24. ATAndrew Thangaraj53:52

        I, I do a probability class, which is quite basic, but it is, um, it, it sort of, it has a math flavor to it in, in the sense that you have to be comfortable with the abstractness, and that, that part, I think I find EE, EP students much better here.

    25. SPSpeaker54:08

        Okay. Okay, Professor,

21. 54:10 – 56:06

    Prof. Andrew's IIT Madras Student Experience (1994-1998)

    1. SPSpeaker54:10

       this was great. I want to just to dial back to the fact that you were a student here-

    2. ATAndrew Thangaraj54:15

       Mm

    3. SPSpeaker54:15

       ... um, a BTech student from '94 to '98.

    4. ATAndrew Thangaraj54:18

       Yeah.

    5. SPSpeaker54:19

       Uh, do you have a nickname?

    6. ATAndrew Thangaraj54:20

       Uh, actually, interestingly, no nickname. My name, uh, it was sounding interest- I mean, uh, different enough to them. I mean, Andrew is not a common name.

    7. SPSpeaker54:28

       Right.

    8. ATAndrew Thangaraj54:29

       So people said, "Okay, we'll just call you Andrew."

    9. SPSpeaker54:31

       And, uh, which hostel were you in?

    10. ATAndrew Thangaraj54:32

        Alak. Alak, no.

    11. SPSpeaker54:33

        You were in Alak. Okay. So, um, and how was your experience in IITM? And I, I ask this question because I think the student experience today is quite different from... Yeah.

    12. ATAndrew Thangaraj54:42

        Yeah? Yeah.... different in some ways, but maybe not that different. I don't know. I think, I mean, you, you have to account for the changes in the times, and once you account for that, maybe the experience is okay. But my experience was amazing. I mean, I wouldn't, uh, say anything less. I definitely grew into more than half of what I [chuckles] was because of my IIT experience. I think, I mean, I'm from, I was from a small town, Trichy. Uh, my, my parents didn't go to college. I was one of the first-generation college goers. And, and I mean, my world was very limited in some sense, right? I hadn't met too many people. Once you come to IITM, you meet people of so many different types, so many different, uh, you know, priorities, diff- different places they come from, different ways of thinking about life, about, uh, oh, what is important, what is not important. All of that was really amazing. At the same time, really great people. I think, uh, very deep in what they... how they could think, and how they could articulate, and how they could debate, and how, uh, you know, all those things were very, very important, and it played a huge role in shaping me into what, [chuckles] whatever I've become now. Definitely, those four years were unforgettable.

    13. SPSpeaker55:51

        Wow! Okay. So we spoke about, uh, electrical engineering, the courses that are taught, a little bit about EP, uh, and we spent a lot of time talking about NPTEL, uh, the outreach programs of IIT Madras, and the BS degrees. Uh, a, a little bit of a

22. 56:06 – 57:48

    The Centre for Outreach and Digital Education (CODE)- Beyond BS Degrees

    1. SPSpeaker56:06

       gap here, uh, the CODE-

    2. ATAndrew Thangaraj56:08

       Yeah, umbrella.

    3. SPSpeaker56:09

       Umbrella-

    4. ATAndrew Thangaraj56:10

       Sure

    5. SPSpeaker56:10

       ... is broader than just the BS?

    6. ATAndrew Thangaraj56:11

       Yes, yes. So, so what IITM did aft- when they saw NPTEL, BS, and all these things coming together is, all of these things were put into the Center for Outreach and Digital Education. Now, CODE today handles everything that is aimed at people outside of campus. Like, if a faculty member wants to organize a conference, they do it through CODE. So everything, everything like that. I- i- in fact, CODE now does a lot of executive education. We do an MTech program. It's called the Web MTech program, uh, for working professionals mainly. So that's also quite popular. A lot of people do it. I mean, over 1,000 people are there [chuckles] in the program now. It's, it's not as large as the BS program. It's, uh, it's more specialized. It's for people who are working. Uh, we do that. Uh, a lot of executive education programs, which are aimed at certificate programs, three months, six months, like that, uh, but aimed at people who are working and just want to, you know, make the knowledge about, let's say, the EV vehicles, electric vehicle space better, or additive manufacturing, they want to learn about that. They want to learn about quantum computing. So basically, they want to learn about deep tech. Most edtechs don't do deep tech, right?

    7. SPSpeaker57:17

       Right.

    8. ATAndrew Thangaraj57:18

       So if you want deep tech upgradation in your knowledge-

    9. SPSpeaker57:21

       Yeah

    10. ATAndrew Thangaraj57:21

        ... CODE offers those courses. Amazing courses we have.

    11. SPSpeaker57:24

        So if you're in a company, and you need to sort of upskill-

    12. ATAndrew Thangaraj57:27

        Yeah

    13. SPSpeaker57:27

        ... in one particular-

    14. ATAndrew Thangaraj57:28

        Yeah.

    15. SPSpeaker57:29

        And it's not just a weekend course, it's a proper-

    16. ATAndrew Thangaraj57:31

        Yeah, yeah

    17. SPSpeaker57:31

        ... you need a few weeks.

    18. ATAndrew Thangaraj57:32

        We can even do, uh, you know, bespoke content. You know, if company comes in and says, "I need eng... I have engineers of this, this, this type. I want them to be trained in this, this, these areas," we can put together a group of faculty who will put a courses, put courses for them. So we have done that.

    19. SPSpeaker57:47

        Okay, Professor, this was

23. 57:48 – 58:22

    Clarifying BS vs. BSc Degrees

    1. SPSpeaker57:48

       great. I have one very silly question, which we get asked all the time.

    2. ATAndrew Thangaraj57:50

       [chuckles]

    3. SPSpeaker57:50

       I have no idea what the answer is. What is the difference between BS and BSc?

    4. ATAndrew Thangaraj57:55

       [laughing] BSc is like a three-year degree.

    5. SPSpeaker57:59

       Okay.

    6. ATAndrew Thangaraj57:59

       BS is a four-year degree.

    7. SPSpeaker58:01

       Okay.

    8. ATAndrew Thangaraj58:01

       So a pretty simple answer.

    9. SPSpeaker58:02

       But both expand-

    10. ATAndrew Thangaraj58:04

        Are Bachelor of Science, yeah.

    11. SPSpeaker58:05

        Okay.

    12. ATAndrew Thangaraj58:06

        In the degree certificate, it'll say Bachelor of Science (BSc) , Bachelor of Science (BS) .

    13. SPSpeaker58:11

        Okay.

    14. ATAndrew Thangaraj58:12

        [chuckles] So that's the difference.

    15. SPSpeaker58:13

        Okay. Oh, so the BS, uh, degree students can exit at diploma, at BSc, and BS?

24. 58:22 – 59:12

    That’s a Wrap!

    1. ATAndrew Thangaraj58:22

       BS, yes.

    2. SPSpeaker58:22

       Okay, Professor, thank you so much.

    3. ATAndrew Thangaraj58:23

       Okay, thank you.

    4. SPSpeaker58:24

       This was great. I know you're very busy, and so sorry to occupy your morning.

    5. ATAndrew Thangaraj58:28

       Mm.

    6. SPSpeaker58:28

       Uh, folks, if you want to learn more about Professor Andrew's work, please visit his website. Uh, the CODE programs, uh, the BS programs have their own websites, uh, so please do check them out. Thank you for watching. Uh, save, subscribe, share, do all of those things, leave some comments. Thank you so much.

    7. ATAndrew Thangaraj58:47

       Take care.

    8. SPSpeaker58:48

       Like, share, subscribe, save. All yours. [chuckles] Thank you. [outtro jingle]

Episode duration: 59:12