Acyut: Humanoid at BITS Pilani

Yesterday, I met Samay, one of the proud parents of Acyut, the humanoid robot at BITS. Samay, Arpit and their team members are in the Bay Area to participate in the robogames in San Francisco.

While the BITS team lost to some Koreans who had clearly had superior sponsorship and a master plan to win, I found speaking with Samay quite fascinating.

Samay is a third year engineering student and has a clear idea of where he is going after college. “Graduate school is a wastage of time,” he declares. “Arpit and I will be starting a company after college to build kits for robotics hobbyists.”

I probed a bit, more out of curiosity than anything else. “Why is graduate school a waste of time?”

Samay has thought it through. “It’s a slow process of learning. We learn what we need to through the internet and wikipedia. Going to school isn’t necessary.”

I had to stop and reflect, due to the sheer ease with which this boy challenged my core beliefs about formal education.

It is true, that I did not grow up at an age when the Internet was so accessible. My generation was busy creating much of what has today emerged as the information infrastructure of the internet. It is very true, that over the last 10 years, I have been using the Internet as my primary learning tool.

I wondered, also, whether Samay’s point-of-view is representative of his peer group in India.