Empowering the leaders of tomorrow today.

It is being proclaimed on the Indian Government website of Department of Science and Technology that today India is one of the top ranking countries in the competitive economy especially in the field of research. However it is said on the same website that we need to embark on some major science projects which have relevance of national needs and which will also be relevant for tomorrow’s technology.

This means we will need a few more Nandan Nilekani’s in India, who currently is the Chairman of the Identification Authority of India. On his blog and in his book, he describes that this project will give each Indian a unique identification number which in turn will enable direct benefits, and fixing weak public delivery systems, giving the poor access to better healthcare, education and welfare safety nets.

One of the leading Scientists of India, Padmashree and Padmabhushan awardee Dr Raghunath Mashelkar while talking to school children at a reputed school in Mumbai highlighted top five attributes of success:

1. Believe in yourself.

2. When you fail, do not go into depression and when you succeed you keep your feet firmly rooted to the ground.

3. There is no substitute to hard work.

4. Positivism, it matters more in the case of leadership. That way you can get extraordinary work done from ordinary people. There is an extraordinary spark in every individual and you should know how to tap it.

5. Believe in teamwork. Individuals can achieve little what a team can. You therefore should build effective teams and guide them to success.

He also said that the gap between academics and industry in India is quite high. What does industry do? It converts knowledge into money and academia converts money into knowledge. Every evolving society needs to strike a balance between these two and the balance will make the society richer in terms of both money and knowledge. In the western countries we find no gap between academic scientific research and industry and therefore we see how advanced they are in terms of knowledge and both application of science.

So what children in 21st century need is more than academics and the top attributes as highlighted by Dr Mashelkar believe in oneself, Leadership, Positive Attitude, Teamwork and Team Building.

The teachers, staff and management of Atmiya Vidya Mandir are aware of these current societal needs and have been imparting these values in children since the inception of our school and thus empowering the leaders of tomorrow, today.