From his actual knowledge and personal experience, Dr. T.P Singh shares the words of wisdom with the youth

Interview by Sakshi Aggarwal

Dr. T.P Singh is associated with Symbiosis Institute of Geoinformatics from last 12 years. Dr. T.P. Singh has vast experience in the field of Geospatial Technology, Environment

Management in India and abroad. He has started his career in Geospatial technology from the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing Dept. of Space, where he has worked on the projects of national importance.

He has earned his Ph.D. degree in the area of satellite Image Classification techniques from Indian Institute of Remote Sensing and M.Phil in Geo Engineering from College of Engineering, Vishakhapatnam. Dr. Singh has received Master Degree in remote sensing from Pierre and Marie Curie University (UPMC), Paris University VI, France and M.Sc. from University of Lucknow in Environmental Science.

He has received the European Professional Higher Post Graduate Diploma in Geoinformatics from GDTA (Institute under French Space Agency) in association with Paris University VI France, University of Lisbon, Portugal and Warsaw University of Technology Poland.

Dr. Singh has worked on LiDAR technology at the University of Freiburg, Germany on Automatic feature extraction. Before, taking academic position at Symbiosis, he has served at different government centers. He has carried out many national importance projects as Principal Investigator and also worked in a team of many projects. Dr. Singh is also consultant to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) funded government projects in field of Environment, Remote Sensing and GIS. Dr. Singh is the member of many professional bodies, He is an Assessor of NAAC (UGC), Govt. of India and Vice Chairman of Indian Society of Geomatics, Pune Chapter. He has received Sir M.Visweswariaya National Engineering Award in the year 2015. Dr. Singh has edited many books in the field of Geospatial Technology, Climate Change and Natural Resource Management and published several papers in the peer reviewed journals.

Dr. T.P Singh’s experience in the education industry

I am associated with SIG since 2005 and have seen many facets of Geospatial education vis-a-vis geospatial industries. Students intake in Geospatial industries is growing at the rate of 10-12% every year. The salary growth of students hired by geospatial industries has increased 18% every year with substantial growth of stipend during their six-month internship. Geospatial education is growing with the pace of growth of location-based services. The future is going too crowded by location-based information and services, where geospatial education will play an important role to provide a trained human resource.

Dr. T.P Singh’s philosophy of leadership and his leadership style

As an educationist, my utmost preference is to provide quality education to the students which takes them into a better world. The philosophy behind this is not only providing good scholars to the society, but also provide a good human being for the development of society. As a head of the institute, my emphasis is to provide a conducive environment of teaching-learning and subsequently to the research. Apart from routine lectures, I motivate faculty to conduct quality research in the area of geospatial technology. My understanding is that we can only create a better education system and learn through the input of research in a different field. To obtain this objective, we have to provide an open environment where the students, faculty can discuss and frame our future roadmap.

Know more about the faculty at SIG here

Major challenges faced as the Director of SIG

The major challenge in geospatial education is lack of awareness among students and parents. This area has enormous opportunities in India and abroad.

Curriculum at Symbiosis Institute of Geoinformatics

SIG curriculum is one of the best curriculums in the geospatial education. The current structure has been quoted in many of national forum for the innovation in teaching learning and assessment pattern. SIG laboratories are well equipped with latest version of hardware and software with high experienced faculties. The passed-out students are working on many important projects of geospatial, IT, Utility & Facility & Navigation across the globe. The curricula are updated as per feedback received from different industries, alumni research institutions after deliberation and discussion in program review committee meeting.

Read about the placement opportunities available at SIG here.

Dr. T.P Singh on time management

All the important work envisages a week before and allots time as per the schedule of a work like research and student interaction time is fixed. The arrangement of this pattern of time is making comfortable to complete the entire task.

Dr. T.P Singh’s relationship with the current students and alumni of Symbiosis Institute of Geoinformatics

We have already established an alumni database.  All the information of passed-out students has been recorded. We invite their suggestions on curriculum updating. We have included some of our alumni in our subcommittee to get their input. Every year SIG organizes an alumni meet in the month of August to provide them information of institute activities and invite their suggestions.

Dr. T.P Singh on how do they establish a healthy culture and climate among the diverse family of Symbiosis Institute of Geoinformatics

SIG has students from all the corners of the country. To bring them to one platform, SIG organizes a week-long induction program where students interact with each other through several outbound activities. We provide a platform, where eminent personalities from industries, research institution, and academia meet with them. SIG organizes a different cultural program where the students understand the beauty of each other’s culture and background.

Qualities which, over the years, have helped Dr. T.P Singh create a brand name for SIG

SIG has a multi-cultural environment where it focuses on quality of curriculum, teaching, and learning. SIG emphasis on practical learning along with the class teaching. SIG was established to bridge the gap between academia and industries and provides update information and skill to the students which make them stand out from the crowd. The technology equipped students are continuously helping to the SIG as a brand name in space-based technology.

Goals in mind for SIG for the next few years

SIG is looking forward to establish a center of excellence in the area of Geospatial Technology. For the coming years, we are focusing on to start different associated programs which will make SIG more versatile to provide knowledge to the society.

Suggestions for the current youth and the aspiring students

In this era of world where technology changes in every three months, student should look towards the shift of paradigm of technology. Skill which is important today may be obsolete tomorrow. My suggestion to the students is- keep the pace with change of technology.