Kumar Mangalam Birla’s advice to college students: Take dual degrees to stay ahead of the curve

Cross-functional training is the want of the hour to sustain with technological developments like synthetic intelligence (AI), stated Kumar Mangalam Birla, the chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, on Sunday.

He defined that cross-functional curricula meant pursuing a number of programs at totally different campuses concurrently. “I think the need of the hour is more cross-functional education. The curriculum of many subjects needs to be revised or supplemented with courses that are transeducational,” Birla stated in his reply to Mint’s query at a press convention held at Birla Institute of Technological Sciences (BITS), Pilani.

Birla, the chancellor of BITS Pilani, visited the campus of the engineering faculty after over a decade to anchor their convocation for the 2025 batch.

He highlighted the institute’s diploma programme, which permits one to pursue engineering at BITS Pilani and a grasp’s in administration from BITS School of Management (BITSoM) concurrently. “I think that is the new focus area, and that is how the real world works,” he stated.

AI+ campus

Birla additionally introduced a ₹1,000 crore funding to arrange a campus in Amravati, Andhra Pradesh, specializing in AI and different superior applied sciences. Birla anticipates that this “AI+ campus” will enrol its first batch by 2027.

“The focus of this campus will be to prepare Indian talent for leadership in the defining technologies of our time. This future-ready campus will specialize in AI, data science, robotics, computational linguistics, and cyber-physical systems,” he stated.

“The undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral programmes have been designed with global best practices in mind, offering industry internships, joint PhDs with top international universities, and hybrid twinning models that give students true international exposure,” he added.

Besides this new campus, Birla made two different essential bulletins, one pertaining to the growth of its campuses—Pilani, Hyderabad, and Goa—centered on constructing “capacity at scale”, named ‘Project Vistaar’. Under this, an funding of over ₹1,200 crore is devoted to developing new educational blocks, cutting-edge analysis services, scholar hostels, and school residences, alongside a broad vary of facilities designed to domesticate a holistic, future-ready studying atmosphere.

Birla goals to broaden scholar capability at these three campuses from 16,000 to 21,000 over the subsequent 5 years, with the complete scholar power throughout all BITS campuses projected to develop from over 18,700 to roughly 26,000 inside the similar interval.

He additionally introduced the launch of BITS Pilani Digital, an edtech platform that may provide 32 programmes, together with 11 diploma and 21 certificates programs, in the subsequent 5 years. The platform goals to attain over 100,000 learners from excessive schoolers to undergraduates to faculty college students to working professionals.

“While expanding campuses is vital, India’s education challenge also demands scale, flexibility, and inclusivity. India is one of the world’s youngest nations. Nearly 65% of our population is under 35, but the stark reality is that too many of our bright, ambitious minds still lack access to the kind of high-quality, flexible education that transforms lives,” Birla stated, emphasising the significance of this edtech programme.