MindChampion Academy’s 10th anniversary commemoration

NIIT Mindchampions Academy (MCA, estb.2002) — a not-for-profit initiative of Grand Master Viswanathan Anand and NIIT Ltd, the transnational IT skills development and certification corporation, to promote the mind stimulating game of chess in schools across India — celebrated its 10th anniversary on July 20. Over the past few decades, the academy has promoted 16,600 chess clubs countrywide with over 1.5 million student members. At a commemorative function held in Delhi, Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal felicitated five national chess masters nurtured by MCA since 2004, in the presence of NIIT MindChampion and World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand. Mme Grace Pinto, managing director of the Ryan International Group of Institutions — which has promoted India’s largest chain of proprietorial primary-secondary schools (128) — was a special guest on the occasion. “It is heartening to note that MCD has developed several masters and young players like Karthikeyan M who is world champion in the under-12 category. There are many young talents like him who make India proud, and I am confident they will script greater success stories in the years to come,” said Anand, speaking on the occasion. Added Rajendra S. Pawar, chairman of NIIT: “This is a proud moment for all of us and it gives me added pleasure that MCA’s ten-year eventful journey coincides with Vishy’s 5th World Chess Championship win. We have been fortunate to have the wholehearted support and involvement of Vishy in this venture, and together we hope to make the movement a bigger success.”  EduAhead-ACT present Adhyapan EduAhead, the K-Ph D education portal of the Bangalore-based OrbiNet Technologies Pvt. Ltd (estb.2011), and Academy for Creative Teaching (ACT, estb. 2006) Bangalore are organising Adhyapan-2012 — ‘an ACT that makes a difference in building a knowledge society’ — on September 13-14 at the Jnana Jyothi auditorium of Bangalore University, and at the India Habitat Centre Auditorium, New Delhi on September 17-18. Renowned educationists and academics from different countries will share their experience and wisdom at Adhyapan 2012. They include Prof. Gerard Puccio, head of the department of creativity, University of Buffalo, New York, USA; Prof. Masao Ishihara, director and facilitator, LEGO Company, Yokohama, Japan and Dr. Gururaj Karajagi, founder-chairman of ACT Bengaluru and a renowned author and scholar. According to Karan Kumar, chief operating officer of OrbiNet Technologies, the conferences will debate the challenges posed by the Right to Education Act, 2009; managing classes with students of different learning abilities; and creativity in education. “Primary and secondary institutions in India are part of a national transformation process and education must respond to user expectations. Over the next decade, the question is not whether technology will transform our education systems and institutions, but how that transformation will unfurl. It is time all like-minded educationists do considerable rethinking about education and learning,” says Kumar. Mohd. Sathak-Digiterati concordat The Chennai-based Mohd. Sathak Group of educational institutions signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the city-based and India’s first IT finishing school Digiterati (estb. 1991), to impart essential employment enhancing skills…