Mangaluru: Education is not meant to gain just knowledge but is also meant to help an individual to learn life skills, DCP (Crime and Traffic) Uma Prashanth said.

She was delivering a talk at the Women in Technology summit, organised by IEEE Computer Society at NITK in Surathkal on Friday.

“Education is of no use unless we are confident to face the challenges in life. Students should understand their rights and responsibilities towards the society.”Stating that natural calamities that caused devastation in Kodagu and Kerala were man-made, she said that all the technological development should be environment friendly.

The students should conserve nature. “Respecting nature is not worshipping nature. It is all about conserving nature,” she added. Further, she said there was a need to change the mindset of the society towards women. Gender inequality is man-made.

There is a need to overcome it by changing the mindset. Women have made achievement in all walks of life, she added. The DCP appealed to the students community to write competitive exams to serve the society in a better way.

Analog EDA,Texas Instruments Director Roopashree said conferences help the students community to learn and gain knowledge.

Analog EDA,Texas Instruments Director Roopashree said conferences help the students community to learn and gain knowledge. Global Foundries-Singapore Deputy Director Kavitha Shankar said there were more opportunities for youngsters, which would help them to make a difference. NITK Deputy Director Ananthanarayana V S said MHRD had mandated to increase the female enrollment in all the centrally-funded educational institutions to 14% in 2018 and 17% in 2019 and 20% in 2020.

The female students enrollment in the NITK has crossed 17% this year, he said and hoped to increase it to 25% to 30% in the coming years. The three-day summit will include talks and workshops on computing, electronics and automation and entrepreneurship. The summit will also include talks by Dr Tomy Sebastian, President, IEEE IAS, USA on ‘Automotive electrification,’ Sudheendra Koushik, Chairman, IEEE Bangalore Section on ‘Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship’ and Megha Ben of IEEE IAS on ‘Journey through IEEE and IEEE CS.’ There will also be a panel discussion by Shilpa Bhat, Vice President, 99Games, Arya Murali, Dr Annapurna Patil, Professor, WiE Chair Bangalore Section, Pragya Dixit, Chief and and co-founder, PRASU, Bengaluru.