Obama Singh Initiative (OSI)

To promote, deepen and widen mutual understanding between the nationals of India and the U.S. through the educational exchange of outstanding faculty & researchers.

Project Duration: 2012-2015  Awarding Organization: United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF)

Project Value: USD 0.25 Mn Geography: India and USA

Project Website

  • To strengthen collaboration and build partnerships between American and Indian institutions of higher education
  • To identify, reform and introduce curriculum in emerging areas of agriculture and food security through Indian and U.S. faculty exchange visits
  • To establish an e-learning and teaching center to strengthen teaching and course delivery
  • Scaling up by means of a national level workshop to be attended by internationally renowned experts
Partner Universities achieved leadership position in agricultural education in plant breeding & seed technology
  • Revamped agricultural education in Seed Science, Food science & Nutrition, Nano Science and Technology and Gender studies
  • Strengthen institutional capacity with Indian faculty gained considerable exposure and expertise at 3 renowned U.S. universities on international practices, review existing subject curriculum, assess infrastructure facilities, research orientation and other emerging trends in agricultural education
  • Established an e-learning and teaching center to strengthen teaching and course delivery, addressed micro level loopholes in the traditional education system of SAUs in India
  • Students of partner universities witnessed efficient learning and teaching through digitalized lectures, global knowledge, trainings and Internship cells as platform to bridge industry and academics in the sector of Food and Agriculture
[minti_image img=”1173″]
Project Conceptualization & Management

Sathguru worked towards strengthen the agricultural education system of India and bring them at par with the global standards through building collaboration between USAID, SVPUAT between leading Ivy League Universities for developing understanding about in terms of adoption of advanced curriculum structure and delivery methodologies. Executing the project with due involvement of ICAR; the solitary central council handling functioning of all SAUs in India, was crux of managing the project for bringing in a new system of learning.

  • 12 courses encompassing degree, certificate and vocational courses in the areas of Seed Science, Food science and nutrition, Nano Science and Technology and Gender studies revamping the existing under graduate and graduate programs introduced by Indian SAUs

Global Collaborations

For OSI, Sathguru worked closely with its global partners including research and academic institutions to bring international expertise and learning infrastructure in the agricultural education system. The project fetched strong network of experienced faculty from Cornell, as well as firm support in terms of advanced practices and systems.

    • Trained Indian Faculty at prestigious universities of US to get learnings across boundaries and inculcate them back in Indian wireframe of education

Capacity Building

Sathguru aimed at building individual and institutional capacity through exposure at leading universities and strategic impact oriented resource based, technology driven intervention in the Universities. The project had trainings that were designed to hold equal significance to knowledge givers (Faculty) as well as seekers (Students). Faculty and students have been trained on effective adoption of the new interventions.

  • Faculty members provided an exposure visit to leading 3 Ivy League institution Cornell University in the US to witness their teaching methodologies and advanced curriculum
  • Trainings aimed to impart exposure on various research activities in the areas of food safety, expansion of cereal crops, product delivery strategies, regulations, trans-border movement of agricultural products

Information Communication & Technology

OSI achieved breakthrough in setting up of Video Collaboration facility, a new age tool for enhancing classroom experience for students, instructors and administrators at SVPUA&T as an extension to the existing media center that captures and edits video lectures for e learning.

  • Digitalized 534 class lectures in textual form and 194 video lectures on a learning management platform-Online learning and training (OLAT)
  • 80 digitalized lectures dedicated only to biotechnology

Policy Advocacy

Sathguru worked with India’s apex body in agricultural research, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to bring in policy level changes that were conducive for carrying out reforms in the curriculum within the two universities. Sathguru carried out the strenuous job of working with the central authority handling agricultural education and proposing the policy frameworks in line with the project goals.

  • The developed courses at partner universities are in the process of receiving approval for launch of the new revised curriculum.

This page will be updated soon