The Galgotias University at Delhi AI Summit | Fake Innovation

The Shocking Numbers

Did you know? India produces only 8% of global research papers, but it's responsible for 15% of global retractions. That means India gives only 8% of research papers to the world, and when those papers are called out as fake, with wrong data, or not doing proper justice to details, they get withdrawn. That's called retractions. And globally, whatever research papers get withdrawn, 15% of them are from India. So technically, you gave less research papers to the world, and you took more back.

Private Universities: Coming to the point—do you know where these 15% retractions from India come from? If we project just that to 100%, 60% retractions come from private universities. Yes, you're thinking right. Private universities give many research papers, and they bring fake data—understand it as copied knowledge from the internet, copied data from the internet. And many times, they get fake peer reviews done which just build their brand from those research people.

The meaning is, they care about this thing that "brother, we should look like big innovations and inventions are happening in our college and our university. We pay a lot of attention to our students, and our students' quality is very good." While this doesn't actually happen.

The Talent Problem

Most of the times, students who choose these private universities, it's not by choice. It's actually a compulsion. If you ask any guy in India that "if you want to join some college and university to study tech," he'll always take the name of IITs. Then NITs, then Triple ITs, and then come private universities or private colleges. So if you see, the pattern is completely clear. The best talent never usually chooses private universities and colleges.

The Environment Gap: So the students who are studying there, they don't come from that environment where you can say they are coming innovating something from their school. Now when you want to do innovations with those kids, you have to give them that level of education, that level of resources in colleges and universities. Environment, culture, resources—from all these, innovations and inventions happen.

But what do you usually see in universities? Pass exams, come on time, give 75% attendance. And apart from these, no innovation and invention is avoided. If you give 80-90% attendance, this is avoided. This is praised. And again, whatever you praise, whatever you avoid—culture becomes like that.

Even today, if some guy says "I'm going to innovate something, I'm starting a new business, I'm making new tech," he gets less respect. One who says "I scored 99%"—this is India. Now all of that is happening in India. And we can change this. But before that, we should know what exactly happened.

The AI Summit Disaster

Alright, let's discuss what exactly happened. So recently, an AI summit happened which was India's biggest AI summit. Many startups came, many new innovations were to be shown. Usually, Indian government is criticized that "you don't do anything new tech-wise in India." Usually, after all these things, discussion doesn't happen in India. That's why they thought "we should do something good." And this idea was actually very good—that a good AI summit, a big AI summit where people from many countries will come, and you can show India's power that "we're also doing something interesting in AI."

The Galgotias Scandal: In this same atmosphere, a stall was given to Galgotia University, which is a private university. And then a very interesting video comes in front of you where Professor Neha told DD News that "this robot you're seeing, a dog robot, this robot was made in their college. Developed. You need to meet Orion, and this has been developed by the Center of Excellence at Galgotias University."

After that, from X to LinkedIn to Instagram to every different social media, lots of posts, lots of memes started coming out. Which were saying only one thing—that "brother, you didn't make this robot. This is a Chinese robot." And some Chinese pages also posted it, and many influencers started targeting it. And all of a sudden, you see that the government says there "please empty your stall." Something like that. One news also came after which they are probably seen leaving.

And interestingly, some new updates came. After that, Wipro also did the same same same problem where they kept the same robot there, and again they said "this is our invention, our innovation." Which is a very big problem for a company like Wipro. And they say "such a big blunder that we created this robot." If you didn't create it, then why are you showing it there? Because if you say "we never said we created it," then you should have shown your own creations and your own work there. If you keep any robot there, automatically that work becomes yours, which is not yours.

More Fake Products: Interestingly, they showed one more product, and that was a football-playing drone, in which they said "we created this, and our kids play with it," something like that. Which is again a very big blunder because this product is also a paid product available on the internet which you can buy, and they showcased it in AI summit saying they made it.

Apart from that, if you see, now one more video is coming out which is that they kept a plane which is a thermocol plane, and it was presented there in AI summit. Which is like extremely shameful because such projects you see kids making in 10th and 12th class in exhibitions too. So quite unfortunate series of events, which is again very shameful that you embarrassed India at global level at this level—that no real innovations happen in India. These people just steal and show that they did it. Something like that. And this is actually happening.

The Root Cause

Now this is what happened. Now let's talk about the next section which is actually more important—that how can we stop all this, and how can we prepare ourselves on all this so that this doesn't happen ahead. It's not just Galgotias. You're understanding just Galgotia college or university. It's actually the complete system failure. Let me explain to you.

System Failure: So what's happening is, this problem starts very early. This problem starts from schools. Then it comes to colleges, and then you see it in AI summit. Let's understand. From school, we're taught somehow complete your file. Usually, we don't even know what we wrote in the file. If you ask a student the first answer of the first question, they can't tell. Forget answer. If you ask them the first question, they can't tell what is written in the file.

Most of the times, whatever research is written in files, that research is just written by seeing from someone's copy. Students never feel it. Never examine it. Never assessed it, and neither is that research their own. Nowadays, in AI time, that research comes through AI apps, and it goes straight to paper. Now in this new age, we have to change our systems. We can't go with those same methods which were already running before.

This happens in schools. After that, whatever projects happen, they also just make by seeing from somewhere YouTube video. There's no actual innovation and invention involved, and no curiosity comes there that "how exactly did this thing happen?" Just make it and present it. Same happens in college. In college also, you just have to write files. Somehow you have to pass exams. You have to perform well in internals and externals, score a percentage, and come to college daily. And that is enough to make you an engineer in India.

The Engineering Reality: So in colleges, usually not much talk happens in innovation and invention. Usually, it's all about just somehow passing college, clearing exams. So when you do AI summit, you see some such things only. So the big hopes were from IITs that from big IITs, big universities where real talent goes, you'll see some new AI tech. But we didn't get to see many cutting-edge things there too. And this tells how less AI culture is in India.

Why This Keeps Happening

Before we go to how exactly we can fix this, which I'll tell you, we should know why this keeps happening again and again in India. Why do we always get stuck in such embarrassing moments at global level?

Because India has a very toxic ranking obsession. Meaning, here rewards are given to those who bring good ranks, who make good percentages, and zero support is given literally to R&D. So basically, if you're in research and development, you're researching something, you want to develop something new, want to innovate, you're not rewarded. Your identity is not made. Society doesn't appreciate you in that way. Neither colleges, nor universities.

The Marks Culture: And that's why even today, those same things are being appreciated, and kids go behind those same things—like marks, percentages. And that's why some different—startups have tried this, but even today society is built in such a way that they usually don't support those startups. Because at parental level also, things are bad. Parents also feel that by bringing a particular set of marks, by taking a particular set of certificates, their child will do better in career—which is not reality.

On top of that, underfunded public units plus lots of load on teachers that you have to complete syllabus, and on top of that almost zero support on that you have to do some research, develop something—talk on innovation and inventions near to zero. Kids are usually taught theory subjects in classes whole time. And it's made sure that they just get good marks. Did they read those things well? Did their tests go well? Did they pass exams or not? Their focus is never that "what new is this student developing?"

And if we don't focus on this, then in coming time, no matter how many summits we do, we'll always keep creating such embarrassing moments.

Learning From Other Countries

Tech Culture: If you see China, if you see Japan, if you see US, if you see Israel, if you see South Korea, if you see Vietnam, any country which is doing good in tech—there, culture is of tech. And that's why those countries are doing good in tech.

If you see India. India is usually called the country of miracles. Here, even today, belief is that you should usually look towards miracles. Tech and science are not that big a deal. Miracle is a big thing. And that's why you see Astrotalk coming, you see big-big startups from India, but which ones? Those selling rudraksha mala. Although they're not bad startups, but these should not be the country's biggest startups.

If you truly dream that you have to grow in tech, then your startups should also be the biggest in tech, which usually aren't even near. And finally, there's too much competition here for a 12th-passed kid to take admission in college universities. So every university, every college wants that this student should join us. And for that, what do parents see? Parents see which university is bringing good placements. Big crores-worth packages are being placed, and where good something is being innovated and invented. But all this remains just pack of head. When actually admission time comes, there only big banners of placements are seen. How many people's crore package got placed. That's about it.

The Placement Obsession: There, no one talks that how many people released research papers. On how many research papers, what talk happened on tech? How many people were innovating? How many people were inventing there? How many people made something different which can work in the world? Which can uplift society? Even today, talks happen that how many students got placed and how many people got jobs. When you see such culture, then you'll see what is happening.

How to Fix This

Now let's talk about the last section—that is, how can we fix all this. And what is the call to action right now.

Solution 1: Number one. So we have to first make UGC rules more strict, and if any kind of misconduct happens, properly punish it.

Solution 2: Number two. You have to reward real innovation, not just that how many good marks you got, how many students got placed, how many kids' crore packages got placed. If you reward your students for real things for which you want to be known in next 10 years, then your country will move in that direction. Your society will also move in that direction.

A small example of this is cricket itself. At one time, cricket was not so famous that people's salary could also be given. Today if you see, we're one of the richest. Right? I would say we're the richest. So how did this whole thing happen? And this happens because you rewarded cricket well. More and more parents decided that they want to take their children into cricket. Very good talent came there. And eventually, you became one of the best in cricket in the world. And people watching cricket are already very many. So there, cricketers can earn a lot of money. Because reward is very good. So more people choose that field.

So if you reward innovation, invention, you'll definitely create better results there.

Solution 3: And you should give more funding to real research. You know, we spend around 0.6% of total GDP only on innovation and these things which are actually needed.

Solution 4: And finally, this is from my side at personal level—that we have to make a very good culture, and for this, a very big level awareness program is needed which government should release, which should be about that "brother, at country level, at whole country level, we want that people send their children in tech, in AI, in all these things, in robotics, in electronics, and we export talent to the world. And that level of education should be there."

And if we can do this, then all this will never happen. In next few years, you'll see that India is actually shining when it comes to tech. And that is what we want to happen. At least at Sherians, we want this to happen.