WHEN NAUSHAD FORBES TEACHES 'INNOVATION', KRIS GOPALAKRISHNAN 'THE INFOSYS WAY, AND NADIR GODREJ 'THE POETRY-CHEMISTRY CONNECT'

Privately funded Nayanta University in Pune, which begins teaching in August, is a collaborative endeavour between prominent industrialists including Kris Gopalakrishnan, Bharat Puri, Satish Reddy, Farhad Forbes, Meher Pudumjee, Nadir Godrej, Raj Dugar, Naushad Forbes, among others and the CII. Founding Chancellor NAUSHAD FORBES, in conversation with Suman K Jha, talks about higher education, innovation, private participation in higher education, and much more. Excerpts

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How did a group of top industry lead- ers come together to found a univer- sity, and how was the CII involved? And, why the name 'Nayanta'?

Starting in 2018, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) set up a core group for a CII university project, which I was asked to chair and develop. We formed a group and have been meeting regularly ever since, with CII being very much involved in the process. As we progressed, both CII and the core group decided that the best way forward was to establish a university with a close connection to CII, but one that would not be a CII project itself. So, we moved on and became Nayanta University, a university being set up by many CII members as opposed to it being a CII university. We have a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with CII and maintain the close connection I mentioned.

The name Nayanta comes from a visioning exercise we conducted about four or five years ago—it’s an invented name. It’s a Sanskrit name that combines two Sanskrit words: 'new' and 'hope' or 'interest in the future'.

Apart from being the founding chan- cellor of the university, you'll also teach a course on innovation? Would other co-founders also teach?

For me, first of all, I'm not so sure about a full course, but certainly many sessions and talks in different courses on campus. It's also possible that I would co-teach a class with someone who would be a more full-time faculty member and who, over time, could take on the course more fully. Other founders may also teach. I'm trying to encourage Nadir Godrej to do a course on the relationship between poetry, as he’s a poet, and chemistry, as he’s also a chemist. He is both a great poet and a great chemist. I think there’s poetry in chemistry, and I believe he should explore that in his course.