Dr. A. Ramakrishna, currently working as Principal, KL University, Hyderabad campus, is an accomplished electronics and communication engineer with a wealth of experience in academia, research, and industry. He is a Doctorate in Wireless Communications and Masters in Telecommunications & Electronics Engineering from Sheffield Hallam University, UK.

He started his career as a Design Engineer at Sheffield Centre for Robotics and later in CPI Electronics Ltd, and worked in engineering sales role in British Telecom. He has published papers in reputed Journals. He is also associated with several professional bodies such as ISTE,CSI,IEEE,IET. 

Dr.A.Ramakrishna has fulfilled his administrative and managerial roles with dedication and creativity, demonstrated vision and an outstanding commitment to excellence in undergraduate & post graduate education in engineering, management, arts, development of major interdisciplinary programs, international engagement. Dr.A.Ramakrishna has joined KL University as faculty in different roles in the areas of teaching, placements, internships, research, academics, administration, Internal Quality Assessment Cell(IQAS).

He is the strength behind in taking the placements to great heights at KL University. He has established the PEGA UAP &Centre of Excellence in Automation Anywhere, a tool for Robotic Process Automation. He has the credit of placing more than 25,000 students across many top MNC Companies. He has contact with more than 500 recruiters across both IT & Core areas.

He was Founder-Director of KLH Global Business School, Kondapur and is one of the key person for the establishment of KL university campus in Telangana. 

KL University Hyderabad

You started your career working in corporate sector as a design engineer in U.K. and then what motivated you to pursue your career in academia and work with KLU in the journey?

Teaching is my passion, which made me transition from the corporate world to the academic world. It gives me an immense pleasure to work as a teacher. KLU’s environment and approach to teaching students also intrigued me. I wanted to be a part of the movement at KLU. Over the years that I have been associated with KLU, seeing my students success in life has kept me motivated to keep doing my duties with diligence.

How do you balance the needs of your faculty, students and administration as a principal at the same time?

Balancing the needs and requirements of people is an important task as the principal of the campus. First of all, I go through each and every student's and the faculty’s concerns and try to address them. I always tell my HODs and the leadership team to give priority to the students, followed by faculty. These two stakeholders are important to us, and we try our best to keep them satisfied.

As a principal, what do you feel is the differentiating factors of KL Hyderabad compared to other institutions in the state or country?

The biggest differentiating factor for KLU is our academics. We have a fully flexible academic system that you cannot find in some other institutions. We follow global standards where each student’s interests are given the utmost priority. KLU is a dynamic environment where we change syllabus as per the need of industry. We have achieved NAAC A++, Category one university status and NIRF 28th rank which shows our keen interest towards student’s careers.

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How do you stay current with the latest trends and developments in the field of engineering and other programs as well? And how do you incorporate in the curriculum offered by the KLU? 

Every year, our course syllabus gets updated. Our Honorable President and Vice President place emphasis on the curriculum and instruct us to review it every six months and make changes if required. We also invite industry experts who are pioneers in that field, and with their help, we make changes to the syllabus. We always try to fit into the industry's latest requirements so that our students are instantly employable after graduation. We always implement the latest technologies in our syllabus, which helps a lot in connecting the dots between the academia and the industry.

How well is KLH maintaining industry relationships with companies in order to leverage them for live projects, internships and placements?

At the KL Hyderabad campus, we give a lot of importance to practical learning rather than rote learning. Our campus has an advantage in terms of geographical location. We are well connected with the IT industry and are a stone’s throw away from top corporations and organizations. We use this to our advantage by tying up with these corporations to provide expert talks, guest lectures, internships, and placements. We also get industry experts to evaluate our student projects.

What measures would you take to ensure that KLH provides a conductive learning environment and with state of art facilities and infrastructure?

We provide state-of-the-art facilities not only for teaching but also for our students through our global certifications. One example of our certifications is the Pega Certified Senior System Architect course. It is designed by Pega Systems and we are following their syllabus on campus. We include a syllabus that is framed with the help of corporate partners to ensure that we provide up-to-date knowledge and skills that are parallel to the current trends in the industry. We are well equipped with modern labs and centers of excellence. We are also revising the course syllabus every year so that whenever a new technology or trend emerges, it is included.

What are the biggest challenges currently faced by engineering colleges in general? How do you address them as a Principal/Director?

One of the biggest challenge faced by engineering colleges is the lack of employability skills among the students. When compared to other engineering colleges, at KLU, students need to earn four global certifications. Specific skilling is very important for a student because once they graduate from campus, they will have confidence that they can do any job, become an entrepreneur, or pursue higher education. Every college is supposed to identify the student’s interests, and the career progression should be done for each and every individual student according to their interest. Once students graduate from our college and are fulfilling their career aspirations, we consider our efforts as successful.

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How do you promote experiential learning and practical application of the knowledge that is learned?

KLH gives high importance to project-based learning and practical skills. Through our projects, we strive for outcome-based education. Whatever theory is being learned in the classroom through textbooks must be integrated and utilized through hands-on approach to study. We send students for internship cum placement programs where many receive PPO’s because of our practical approach to our degrees.

We are in a world where the advancements of technology are happening very rapidly. What are your thoughts on people who feel that the current educational programs will go irrelevant in the future?

Technology is advancing at a rapid pace, and we have tools like Chat GPT, which is a pioneer in the market. The basic fundamentals are always required to understand how it works in the backend to do some exceptional tasks. There is always a need for basic knowledge about the domain and expertise, which students should acquire from premier universities like ours. Even though there are high technology advancements happening, the basic fundamentals will help you build a sustainable career.