Super 1000. What matters ? And what doesn’t ? Have most IITians wasted their IIT degrees ?
A few years ago – the finance secretary, the defence secretary, the power secretary, the water resources secretary and even the law secretary – were all IITians. As are the Chief Secretaries from Madhya Pradesh to Manipur and ministers from Railways to Kashmir. The most eminent disability lawyer, India’s top rated investment bankers, best performing AIF Fund manager, former ISRO head, Niti Aayog members. And even leaders of Isckon, Radha Soami Satsang, Akshaya Patra, Tirupati Ashram and down to the former Chief Minister of Delhi … are all IITians. Or head of the World Bank and former global head of Citibank. Or former Chairmsn of Bank of Baroda or current Head of the Reserve Bank. Or climate warriors or the countless unicorn promoters running taxis, delivering food, teaching physics or trading shares. There is nothing technical or “engineering” about any of these IITians
Have all these people wasted their Degree ? And by that same measure, have the various Directors of the IITs who are IIT Btechs put their degrees to good use. Sundar Pichai runs one of the worlds largest BTech companies but has really done no engineering.
It is a question which begs for a defendable answer. I am asked this question at every one of the hundred or so events I attend every month.
The answer is that it doesn’t matter. It is the job of the IITs to admit based on meritocracy and quotas. And to train them to be good engineers. And to impart the soft and hard skills, provide the right peer group, the right teachers, the best infrastructure …. And to graduate them. That is where their job ends.
After that, it is upto the alumnus to decide what path or career he or she wants to pursue. It is the responsibility of the IITs to ensure that every individual awarded their degree is fit for purpose. And it ends there.
The world needs diversity. And whilst some roles pay better, others progress better and yet others impact more … the world needs them all.
There was a time when choices were few. In my time, the boys chased engineering, the girls chased medicine. Life was simple.
And then satellite tv showcased options. Media made cricket and Bollywood respectable. It even created an aura about underworld dons and a certain glamour about joining politics or bureaucracy.
Walk into any school class and ask the class what they want to become when they grow up – and almost no one wants to be a scientist or academician or engineer. What they want to be is rich or famous or successful. And happiness is almost always synonymous with wealth. And health has no value till it lost. Just like teeth or hair or parents or a good job.
And then AI happened after Covid. Yet there is nothing new about AI. Swami Suryanil 🙏🏻 did a PhD in ai in 1989. Jyoti Joglekar has been teaching AI for 30+ years.
Ai can train an engineer better than any college can.
And thus. Super 1000.
Super 1000. A disruption in education like no other. It isn’t a degree or even a college. It is an orientation that makes you ai resilient. And it goes live this year. For just 1000 kids.
The IITs in contrast onboard 30,000. The govt onboards 600 thousand in government jobs. Yet Super 1000 is all that the IIT Alumni Network will mentor from among the 100 million that sit on the rolls of colleges.
And the idea is not to onboard the Suoer 1000 based on hard work or a written exam or an interview or on affluence. But to do it based on a scan of the Brain, the sequence of the genes, the constituents of your blood, the diversity of your gut and a prolonged personal interaction over days.
And why is the IIT Alumni group doing it. It is a technology demonstration project like no other in the history of science, the history of humanity or the history of education.
The idea is to augment human intelligence so as to manifest the complete latent potential of the human mind. The very core of the Megaspheres orientation.
And then to use nature intelligence as a force multiplier to exponentially enhance human ability at a rate faster than ai. And ai is improving very quickly – thanks to unlimited funding and a global bubble like no other. The combination of greed and fear unleashed by ai is like no other.
Yet the most sophisticated ai on the planet struggles to beat a dog in general intelligence. And the worst fears of ancient eastern wisdom are coming through. Western science and flawed management theory have brought humanity to the edge. One more wrong step and it will be the end of mankind.
It doesn’t make sense for India to compete with China to be the factory of the world. Or with America to be market of the world.
Or with the developed north to become a meal ticket for Nvidia and Anthropic. America is rich and sick (both mentally and physically) – a condition that has even permeated into their highest office. China is relatively healthy but will struggle to overcome legacy and migration issues.
American leadership in quality of life is not sustainable. Nor is their relevance in higher education. Their democracy is a comic act. And the spectre of war is real.
The opportunity for India is to leapfrog in education, in the world order and in the rate of socio economic progress. And that needs leaders who will lead ai. Control it. Dominate it.
These leaders don’t exist. The colleges to create them don’t exist. The books don’t exist because the syllabus is yet to be made.
Yet the need has never been stronger. The possible impact beyond expectation and belief.
What we know for sure is that the current education system cannot deliver these leaders, these competencies, these skill sets. Entrance exams cracked through coaching are no longer relevant.
And that is where Super 1000 comes in. It is a humble attempt to train a set of humans to beat ai, to control ai and to dominate ai.
Without ai.
And it starts this academic year.
