JNU reaches out to alumni across the globe seeking their expertise on COVID-19 crisis: Prof. M. Jagadesh Kumar, VC
NEW DELHI. Jawaharlal Nehru University through its newly launched initiative “Global Alumni Connect” has started to reach out to its alumni spread across the world to invite them to share their expertise on stemming the COVID-19 pandemic menace.
For this, the university recently organized two webinars involving experts from India, South Korea and USA to discuss the Coronavirus outbreak issue.
On the onset, Prof. M. Jagadesh Kumar, Vice-Chancellor, JNU informed the participants about how the University was reaching out to the Alumni through ‘JNU Global Alumni Connect’ in which it planned to reach out to its distinguished alumni to share their expertise on various relevant topics like the present COVID-19 crisis.
JNU has recently launched the “Global Alumni Connect” initiative to foster strong bonds between its alumni and the University Community through the Alumni Affairs Office (AAO). The University recognizes the alumni as important stakeholders in enhancing JNU’s excellent resources for high-quality education.
Under the guidance of Prof. Kumar, AAO-JNU organized the first Webinar series in which two distinguished speakers: Prof. Balram Singh, Director, Institute of Advanced Studies, Darmourth, USA and Prof. Gobardhan Das, Special Centre for Molecular Medicine, JNU were invited to deliver their lecture titled “Extracting Cream out of Corona Crisis: Positioning the India of Future” and “Covid-19: India’s Challenge and Responses” respectively which was held on May 7, 2020.
The webinar took off with the welcome address by Prof. Ravikesh, Chairperson, AAO-JNU. Both the speakers deliberated upon their experiences of the USA and India and shared about the scientific progress in the development of an effective vaccine.
Prof. Girish Nath Jha moderated the lectures. The webinar series got overwhelming response as it was attended by more than 600 participants from a diverse background.
AAO-JNU organized the second webinar series with two distinguished speakers: Yoo Chang ho, Minister-Counselor, Embassy of ROK, and Prof. Rajib Dasgupta of Centre of Social Medicine & Community Health, School of Social Sciences, JNU who shared their experiences on various aspects of present COVID-19 pandemic.
Prof. Ravikesh, the Chairperson, AAO-JNU welcomed the speakers and shared the vision of the Alumni Affairs Office, JNU’s vision to reach out to the Alumni who have been contributing to the society and invite them for sharing their experience with the JNU community. He also shared about other ongoing activities like updating the database of all the Alumni (who are more than 80000), taking up new initiatives for networking, raising funds, and build up goodwill between the distinguished alumni and the JNU Community.
Yoo Chang-ho made his presentation titled “How South Korea Flattened the Corona Curve” wherein he shared various data about COVID-19 and explained how the South Korea government’s timely steps helped in containing the pandemic. He appreciated the role of the citizens in effectively tackling the situation effectively that helped Korea in flattening the curve.
Prof. Rajib Dasgupta provides a vivid description of India’s diverse situations and various models which are being adopted locally by the states as well as the steps taken by the Central the government in its efforts to contain the present pandemic.
The session was moderated by Dr. Praveen Verma, National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), New Delhi, and coordinated by Dr. Saurabh Sharma, School of Computer & Systems Sciences, JNU and Mr. Satyanshu Srivastava, Centre for Korean Studies, JNU.
