One Day Workshop for IARD 6020 by Shravan Kumar Ramaswamy

One Day Workshop for IARD 6020 by Shravan Kumar

Students participating in the Fiber Science component of the International Agriculture & Rural Development (IARD) 6020 at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) at Cornell University will join their peers from Indian agricultural universities to attend a one-day workshop at Shravan Studio, Hyderabad run by acclaimed Hyderabad based fashion designer Shravan Ramaswamy. The experiential learning session will be held on 9 January, 2014 from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.

This year, IARD 6020 is being held from 4 January to 18 January 2014. Over the two-week period, students under four main thematic groups — Agricultural Systems, Fiber Science, Value Addition and Rural Infrastructure — will visit agricultural research centers, farms, development projects and agri-business enterprises in India.

As an innovative experiential learning graduate level course delivered by the CALS at Cornell University, IARD 6020 is designed to expose graduate students to agricultural and rural infrastructure building practices in emerging economies. From 2003, India became the chosen location for the field study component. Since then Sathguru Management Consultants, Hyderabad in partnership with CALS, Cornell University has built upon the potential of the program by involving students and faculty Indian agricultural universities and institutes. The unique initiative thus became a platform for Indian students of agriculture and related sciences learn from an international faculty and also share their knowledge with their peers from other nations.

The IARD 6020 thus enables students from different nations to undergo a series of lectures in agriculture and related topics combined with other learning modules. Indian students benefit from the mutual international exposure and close group interaction. The teaching methodologies adopted during the course vary diversely and includes lectures, group discussions, role-play, case studies, video conferences, and method and result demonstration. Students are exposed to different cultural, educational and social practices that augment their learning and stimulate their performance. Enhanced opportunities are created for interactions among the students and faculty at educational, cultural, social, and even personal levels. Multilayered evaluation and several group presentations assist the students in learning new methods and approaches to problem solving.

The IARD program continues to be the most sought after and intellectually reinforcing program that focuses on two main factors—Experiential Learning and Global Peer Interaction. Participants gain in depth knowledge, but also get a first hand and direct experience with field visits to research institutes, NG05, agricultural universities as well as attend lectures on rural development shared by experienced speakers.

Accompanying Faculty

Susan Ashdown
Susan Ashdown teaches technical apparel classes, with an emphasis on the conceptual basis for understanding the interactions between the bodies, materials, shape and silhouette, and the environment (both physical and social) in which clothes are worn. Her research and teaching are in the field of technical apparel design, with a concentration on sizing and fit of both fashion and functional apparel, and the use of full body three-dimensional scanning in the apparel industry. She is a Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Fashion Practice; The Journal of Design, Creative Process & the Fashion Industry.

Margaret Frey
Margaret Frey is the Director of Graduate Studies and an Associate Professor, in the College of Human Ecology, Cornell University. She holds a PhD in Fiber and Polymer Science from North Carolina State University. Her research themes fall under two interconnected umbrellas: rapidly renewable polymers as engineering materials and interfacing fiber science and nanotechnology. Her success and the range of research have resulted from strong collaboration with researchers in both related and dissimilar fields.
About CALS, Cornell University

Cornell University, an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, USA, is one of the world's leading universities providing education to about 20,000 students from the world over. These students are guided by about 3,000 able faculty comprising mostly of internationally recognized authorities in their respective fields. The research interests and activities of this faculty have placed Cornell amongst the world's best research institutions. Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) is recognized as the leading centers for agricultural education in the world. The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, instrumental in establishing the International Agricultural Research System, has been involved in education and research partnerships in several countries in Asia since the Green Revolution. In the food science and food process arena, Cornell excels with myriads of patents and extension and outreach efforts that span several countries across the world.

About Shravan Kumar, Hyderabad
Shravan Kumar has carved garnered acclaim as a leading fashion designer in Hyderabad. In a career spanning 18 years, he has created magic with fabrics admired by patrons across India. This research-oriented designer looks up to fashion as his religion, than a mere passion and has set new trends. His collections focusing on AP handlooms were showcased across Chennai, Coimbatore, Ludhiana, Kochi and Vizag Fashion Weeks, Miss Hyderabad 2012 and Prann 2012. Despite the fact that weavers were the second largest community after farmers and one of the biggest providers of employment, weavers in India have been facing several problems since time immemorial. Millions of weavers are working out of their homes in the absence of electricity and poor infrastructure. One of the major problems is the negligible amount of credit available to them. Defective policy, neglect and competition from multinationals have taken a toll on the com-munities of traditional weavers in the country. Taking a note of these tragic issues, Shravan Ramaswamy, as a well-acclaimed fashion designer of Hyderabad, plays his honest part by paying a tribute to weavers of the nation, through AN ODE TO WEAVES & WEAVERS — an annual fashion show of his own, in which he showcases more than 100 different and rarest weaves from the remotest of locations in India every year

About Sathguru Management Consultants
Sathguru Management Consultants is a multifaceted advisory firm providing strategic, technological, functional and sectoral advisory services to an international clientele. Sathguru is among the largest strategy and technology management advisory firm for the life sciences sector that covers a broad spectrum of industries including agriculture, food, retail, animal sciences and health care. Sathguru's development efforts are carried out in partnership with domestic and international development partners Sathguru has pioneered creation of public-private partnerships for advancement of life science research, skill development and technology commercialization.