Computer science, communications most lucrative

Prof Debabrata Das

, director of

IIIT-Bangalore

, says the engineering fields of computer science and communications are certain to stay the most lucrative in the coming years because of the job opportunities in the fields.

“Demand for computer science, data science and communication science has gone up, apart from interdisciplinary subjects such as robotics, mechatronics, and biomedical engineering,” he says. Mechatronics is the branch of engineering that focuses on the integration of electronic and electrical engineering systems, apart from robotics, computer science and telecommunications.

Das’s own work has been in the field of computer networking, mainly on broadband wireless network, 5G and 6G, and medium access control protocol (MACP). MACP protocols enforce a methodology to allow multiple devices access to a shared media network.

“If two of us communicate at the same time with the same wi-fi and the medium is wireless, both will have the same frequency and will collide. How the machine will intelligently understand this without talking to each other is what MACP is about,” he says.

Das adds that such communications will gain more importance in the Industrial 4.0 world, where industrial devices communicate with each other. “You probably need about 700 billion IoT devices for the 7 billion population in the next 15 years, and these will be communicating in the cloud, and storing information. This will also result in a change in the protocols that carry the information for efficient routing,” he says.

To become an expert in the subject, he suggests a better understanding of how the internet works, in depth understanding of heterogeneous system communication, and conversion of wireless communication to optical communication. For that, he says, students need to be good in mathematics, probability, computer networking, signal processing and mobile architecture.

But he is concerned about the state of engineering education in India. “Engineering schools have improved due to the support from UGC, but that is not enough. Most schools need to improve with two mandates: being atmanirbhar, and improving skills of students.”

He also suggests starting individual and group projects at the UG level that give students more exposure to the world of technology. His views mirror that of

Hari Balakrishnan

, professor of computer science at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

, who compared it to being an apprentice. “Research is best learnt in a way one becomes an electrician – not just theory, but you learn by doing it,” he had told Times Techies.

Students, Das says, should also learn to communicate, show proficiency in technical writing and know how to speak. “Also, face success and failure with the same gusto. Nobody takes failure seriously these days,” he says.