‘India, Israel have common problem in brain drain’

March 28, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 05:34 am IST - COIMBATORE:

India and Israel suffer the common problem of brain drain, said Joseph Klafter, president, Tel Aviv University (TAU), Israel, while speaking on ‘Promoting Innovation in Higher Education’ at a programme the CII Coimbatore Zone had organised here on Friday.

Just as in India, in Israel too the academically bright students and experts went to either the U.S. or Europe.

To overcome the problem, the TAU was working on bringing back home people from Harvard, MIT or Oxford universities by giving the resources they required to innovate and continue their excellence. For, any university was as great as its people.

In bringing back people, the TAU was particularly focussed on those faculty that were multi-disciplinarians.

Highlighting the fact that his university ranked number nine in the world in having the maximum number of students whose projects attracted venture capitalists, Mr. Klafter said that TAU encouraged freedom and audacity. And, by audacity he meant not taking no for an answer. The students were encouraged to challenge their faculty and work towards that. As for freedom – it was freedom to think. It also encouraged crazy ideas.

There existed tremendous possibilities of collaboration between Indian and Israeli institutions – both, in education and in industry.

The university was looking to have more Indian industries collaborate with TAU. As of now, the institution was working with the Tatas, who had invested close to USD 5 mn in seed funding.

This was part of the TAU’s move to look east at India, China, Singapore and also a few other countries.

Mr. Klafter said that TAU had 1,500 students, including around 50 from India, and was looking to increase the number.

Most of the Indian students studied electrical engineering.

At the inauguration, K.V. Srinivasan, chairman, CII Coimbatore Zone, Sheela Ramachandran, convenor, Education Panel, CII Coimbatore Zone, and S. Balasubramanian, co-convenor, Education Panel, CII Coimbatore Zone, were present.

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