Dr. Sandip N. Jha is founder trustee of the Mumbai-based Sandip Foundation Educational Trust (aka Sandip Foundation, estb. 2005) which has promoted 15 higher education institutions in Nashik (Maharashtra) and Sijoul (Madhubani, Bihar) with an aggregate enrolment of 8,500 students and 1,000 teaching and non-teaching staff. The foundation’s 200-acre Nashik campus hosts six contemporary institutes including two engineering colleges, two polytechnics, and a pharmacy college while the campus at Madhubani houses a polytechnic and B.Ed teacher training college. The Nashik campus was awarded private university status — Sandip University — by the Maharashtra state government in June 2016.

Newspeg. The Mumbai-based Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks recently ranked Sandip Foundation #8 countrywide for the number of patents filed in 2016-17. The foundation’s engineering and polytechnic institutes were granted 140-plus patents and 57 copyright licenses. 

History. After graduating from the Government Engineering College, Jalpaiguri (West Bengal) in 1991, Jha rejected a well-paying job in a public sector company to follow his dream of a career in academia and launched the Sandip Academy — an engineering exams coaching school — in Mumbai with two students. Subsequently, the academy expanded its portfolio to include coaching for several public entrance exams including JEE, GATE and UPSC. By 2002, the academy had established 30 centres across India, when operations were deliberately scaled down to promote full-fledged higher education institutions. 

In 2005, the Sandip Foundation was registered, and in 2008 inaugurated its expansive 200-acre campus in Nashik. More recently in 2013, Jha established the second campus of Sandip University in his hometown, Madbhubani, Bihar. 

Direct talk. “India has hundreds of institutions which churn out a large number of unemployable students. Therefore from the beginning, our objective was to infuse our curriculums with industry-connected experiential learning and soft skills training to ensure the employability of our graduates. For instance, students at our Nashik campus learn practically at a state-of-the-art automotives lab set up by Toyota Kirloskar Motors Pvt. Ltd. It’s this focus on hands-on learning, industry interface and research which has helped us shape graduates who are readily recruited by top companies including TCS, Mahindra & Mahindra, and Bosch,” says Jha. 

Future plans. With the Nashik campus conferred private university status last year, Jha plans to focus his energies on building international linkages and collaborations for the varsity. In particular, he is committed to expanding the group’s international technical training programmes launched in 2014 in association with Centre for Tele Infrastructure and Vishwaniketan, Navi Mumbai. Under this programme, Sandip University’s engineering students train at selected foreign universities. 

“This international programme gives our students exposure to latest technologies and improves their global employability skills. We are in talks with several foreign institutions and expect to sign up 50 universities by end 2017,” he says. 

Wind beneath your wings!

Dipta Joshi (Mumbai)