Chandigarh, February 2
As part of the Ministry of Education (MoE)–AICTE initiative, the Institution’s Innovation Council (IIC), Panjab University, today organised a panel discussion and hands-on training programme on Generative and Agentic AI tools for innovation and start-up mentoring.
The MoE–AICTE workshop on AI and Innovation opened with an address by Prof. Rohit Sharma, President, IIC, Panjab University, who acknowledged Vice-Chancellor Prof. Renu Vig’s contribution in initiating AI-driven initiatives at the University and expressed confidence in the programme’s impact.
Addressing the programme, Vice Chancellor Prof. Renu Vig spoke on the ethical use of AI, government AI missions, scalable and bias-aware frameworks, the role of foundational knowledge alongside AI, and applications of AI across sectors.
Registrar Prof. Y.P. Verma thanked the MoE and AICTE for the initiative to promote awareness, accessibility and effective utilisation of artificial intelligence in higher education institutions, particularly in the areas of innovation, entrepreneurship and start-up development. He highlighted the benefits of hands-on AI training and AI-enabled start-ups.
Director, R&D Cell, Prof. Meenakshi Goyal emphasised the ethical and inclusive integration of AI in research and innovation. The session was moderated by Prof. Naveen Aggarwal, who highlighted the importance of democratising AI through large-scale capacity building.
A panel discussion featured Vikalp Sharma, AI and ML Engineer at Optum, Prof. Sunil Kumar Singh of CCET, Prof. Y.P. Verma of UIET, Panjab University, Prof. Naveen Aggarwal of UIET, Panjab University, and Prof. K.D. Prasad, Director, IGNOU. The discussion focused on the role of AI in higher education, innovation and start-up ecosystems. It highlighted how Generative and Agentic AI are enabling new approaches to problem-solving, mentoring, interdisciplinary research and technology-driven entrepreneurship. Vikalp Sharma, the expert speaker for the workshop, brought extensive experience, having delivered Generative AI, Agentic AI and machine learning solutions across the healthcare, fintech and edtech sectors.
The programme covered start-up thinking and innovation, fundamentals of Generative AI and large language models, prompt engineering, and hands-on exposure to AI tools relevant for start-ups and research, including NotebookLM and Lovable.
A key highlight was an advanced session on Agentic AI, including workflow automation using platforms such as n8n, enabling participants to understand how AI agents can automate complex real-world processes. The workshop also showcased industry use of large-scale data analytics and Generative AI to address corporate challenges. The programme emphasised hands-on learning to streamline ideation, research and product development, provided clarity on initiating start-ups in the AI era, promoted responsible and ethical AI adoption, and concluded with a valedictory session.
