CIO Interview: 'Wireless, video streaming, and mobile apps are the future of ICT'

Education today has changed as compared to education 10 years back and so has the forms and modes of educating. The indispensable components like pen and paper are getting replaced by keyboards. Technology is slowly and steadily making a mark in everyone's life. VOICE&DATA spoke to Dr JS Sodhi, CIO & head, IT designated as assistant vice president of Amity Group to understand the changing dynamics of education and how ICT helped in uplifting the students who happen to be the building blocks of the society. Sodhi, today, is leading a team of 150 IT professionals and is responsible for the overall IT management of all Amity Institutions throughout 30 locations in India and across the globe - Dubai, the US, UK, Singapore, Mauritius, and all the companies under AKC Group of Companies. Excerpts -

- Dr JS Sodhi
CIO and assistant vice president, Amity Group

You have campuses spread both nationally and internationally. How do you keep these integrated and connected? What are the ICT tools that you use for this?

The Amity Education Group is a private non-profit education group, offering globally benchmarked education at various campuses in India and around the world (Singapore, Dubai, London). These campuses are integrated and connected using the latest technology in information and communication. Nationally, all the Amity campuses are integrated via MPLS with 4 MB link to the central hub whereas the international campuses are connected via virtual private network to the central hub.

How are you empowering the students by the use of ICT and mobile applications? Which data services does your organization deploy for this?

Amity enjoys being hi-tech. That is why we are proud being the first wireless campus of India. Years before most people had not even heard of the technology. As India's first hi-tech smart campus, Amity has wireless broadband internet connectivity with over 75 kms of fiber optic/LAN cable backbone structure. Each student is provided with a smart card for access control/e-wallet, etc.

Also, all campuses are interconnected through a highly secured Amity virtual private network where over 4,000 PCs are connected to the internet through broadband connections whilst 37 high-end servers power the Amity network. We also have an in-house ERP solution that helps in interaction and knowledge sharing among students and between students and faculty. Keeping in mind the uptake of mobile phones and convenience for our students, the services can also be accessed over mobiles and smartphones.

Amity also offers its students Wi-Fi zones so that they can be connected all the time. They have also been given access to repository of lectures which can be accessed through intranet or internet. Live webcast of guest lectures are also facilitated at the institute. Amity University channel on YouTube is a database of lectures and various events taking place in Amity University campuses.

Which are the ICT vendors that you collaborate with to impart quality education to the budding telecom professionals?

Amity University has collaborated with CISCO, EMC, and BSI to impart quality education to the budding telecom professionals. These vendors help us to be updated, and collaboration with them help us to impart quality education to the budding telecom professionals and have infrastructure adhering to the global standards and that are the best available to suit the changing needs of the industry.

What security measures do you take to keep your network secure and safe?

With new threats emerging sooner than ever, Amity offers a safe and secure environment to its students. We offer a unique password protected domain login for students and faculties. MAC address binding and strict firewall policies at gateway are also practiced aggressively at our institutes.

Do you facilitate online classes in your university? If yes, what type of ICT equipments have you installed for this?

Educational institutes are increasingly becoming a major area for solution providers. Increased cost of education and demand for hi-tech updated service in education have led to a boom in e-learning resulting in adoption of conferencing solutions in the sector. 'Anywhere, anytime' access to online classes creates new breakthroughs in bringing education within the reach of students in the any regions of the country.

Amity University provides online learning through Amity Center for eLearning (ACeL) to give individuals and organizations the competitive edge. ACeL provides various undergraduate and postgraduate programs through e-learning. We use Saba server for web based sessions. Amity also offers online digital library as well as most hi-tech computing environment.

How have your IT and communication budgets changed over the past one year? Any specific mandates in terms of implementation that you would like to highlight?

Gone are the days when IT budget used to be allocated product- and technology-wise. Today IT comes in the picture for every division of our institute. Though I can't talk on our IT and communication budgets but yes, looking at the growing acceptance and need of information and communication technology tools, it has certainly changed and increased to a great extent.

Which telecom (ICT) technology will be the key driver in the education sector in the days to come?

Wireless, video streaming, and mobile apps are the future of ICT. These technologies hold immense opportunity in the education sectors as students are the building blocks and the coming generation. Students utilize these services to the optimum level and being the end-user of the service, they are always in a better position to ideate, innovate, and develop the applications for their community. Also, the student community usually utilizes and enjoys the benefits from the successful applications downloaded in huge volume by the subscribers through revenue sharing.

Industry like ICT-academia partnership is one thing that the students as well as the employers look for these days. What are your plans there?

We do believe in industry-academia partnership. We already have relationships with Cisco, BSI, HP, Oracle, Microsoft, Fortinet, EMC, etc, vide which the industry very actively participate even in our course syllabus updates.

Which are the main IT challenges you faced in the past year and how are you looking to change that?

Every technology comes with challenges, however the IT industry is very fast and the industry is also capable of getting solutions for its end-customers. Today at Amity, we do not face much challenges and due to the rapid growth in IC, the challenges get fixed usually. The exponential growth of Amity and our desire to remain always ahead of implementing new technological solutions keeps us always on our toes.