Can BSc Data Sc take over vanilla BTech/BE

Rajlakshmi.Ghosh@timesgroup.com  25.05.2020

With the heavy usage of Data Analytics and AI to build predictive models for corona patient and infection identification, data scientists will be in high demand in a post-covid world. While this might accelerate the demand for data science courses, the vanilla BE/BTech degrees would need a strong AI component with at least a minor specialisation to help solve realworld problems.

“Institutes must realise and embrace this change proactively and offer focussed courses on AI/ML at both UG and PG levels. There is also a need to carry out research in these fields in healthcare related topics and encourage entrepreneurship using AI/ML technologies,” says Ranjan Bose, director, IIIT Delhi. He adds further, “The world is evolving at a phenomenal rate, and so is the demand for new areas in engineering. In the post-covid world, we expect to see unprecedented growth in the areas covered by AMOEBA: AI, Machine Learning, Optical Communications, E-commerce, Blockchain technology and Autonomous Vehicles. This is going to drive industrial growth with a rising demand for engineering education in these domains.”

But then, even as AI, and data science continue to hold sway, there is a need to make each engineering stream industry-relevant, by infusing AI-related courses. “CSE, EE, AI and Data Science have been lucrative fields for the last few years (or decades), and this does not seem to go away soon. Ultimately, if each engineering field trains students on contemporary technologies used in the industry and more sectors of the industry are opened up locally, hopefully, all engineering fields will have good prospects in terms of career growth and remuneration,” says Vineeth N Balasubramanian, head, Department of Artificial Intelligence, IIT Hyderabad.

Way back in the 1980s, BE/ BTech degrees in India were gateways to live the American dream, fuelled by the growth of the IT and ITES industry. However, their demand started to plateau post 2008. “The IT and ITES firms continue to hire engineers due to lack of any other better option and invest substantially in training them to be data scientists and AI specialists,” says Sundar Raj Vijayanagar, board member of the Vijaybhoomi University. “But over the years, the need for AI-skilled engineers even before the pandemic has become imperative, which is why a student majoring in civil engineering and pursuing a minor in AI will be more in demand than a vanilla civil engineer. This is due to the wide application of AI in all fields to ensure optimised use of scarce and expensive resources,” Vijayanagar adds.