Write-up of Webinar 5.0 Topic “Virtues of Virtual Education in Pharmaceutical Sciences during and After Covid-19”

Lloyd Institute of Management and Technology (Pharm) conducted its fifth addition of webinar series, Webinar-5.0 on “Virtues of Virtual Education in Pharmaceutical Sciences During and After Covid-19” was scheduled on Wednesday, 17th June, 2020 at 4:00 PM. The Webinar was organized under the supervision of Dr. Vandana Arora Sethi, Group Director, Lloyd Group of Institutions and team from Lloyd Institute of Management and Technology (Pharm.). Lloyd received overwhelming responses of 550+ registrations from Institutions like Jamia Hamdard, DPSRU, New Delhi, K.I.E.T, Amity University, Rame-esh Institute, Greater Noida, and more. The magnate speakers from various renowned Institutes to share their insights on this webinar: Prof. (Dr.) Kanchan Kohli, School of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi; Professor Kamla Pathak, Pharmacy College Saifai, Uttar Pradesh University of Medical Sciences, Saifai, Etawah, India; Prof. Harvinder Popli, Dean, Off. Registrar and Dean, DPSRU, and Dr. Vandana Arora Sethi, Group Director, LLOYD, Greater Noida.

The First session was welcomed with a very intellect and concurrent faced question on the Challenges and opportunities in times of COVID. Prof. (Dr.) Kohli very well shared her intellect by touching the various sectors i.e., Health, Pharmaceutical, Academic, Economic sectors as well as how the Physiological wellbeing and Social harmony is facing extreme challenges currently. Her focus on the topic shed some light on the major opportunities that one might get to get themselves involved with surpassing the seriousness around. Continuing with her, she led right through the very core concerns faced by the researchers’ and the impact on it during this pandemic and what could be the way forward for the time lost.

The next eminent speaker, Professor Kamla Pathak, she spoke on “Online Education in COVID-19 and post COVID-19” and the various platforms like MHRD, NCERT, DTE, SWAYAM, NPTEL, etc. that exists to enable online education in India. They aim to increase connectivity with institutions, accessibility to the study material, and running online classes. She highlighted on the Feasibility of virtual labs in Pharmacy education and how virtual reality has played its part in teaching. Her words concluded on “The future is: Assortment of social media and online platforms”

The third Speaker Prof. Harvinder Popli, spoke on Education Management during Lockdown and how students can stay competitive in the changing job markets. She had a very interesting and intriguing concept behind the Transition from the Present Chalk and Talk Model to Virtual Education. Prof. Popli shared her optimistic vision of the future of online education in India -2021 and its key categories and market structure. She also shared some commonly used platforms for Online Teaching like, Google Classroom, TED Ed, Ed Puzzle, etc that could be beneficial for the upcoming era 2021. Top EduTech Companies, their increase in enrolments in the post-lockdown period & Health Sciences Startups in India and US were also discussed. Her session was concluded by the talk on the Healthcare sector, Future of Online Education & how one can focus on the campus-to-workplace gap.

In the final hour of the Webinar 5.0, Lloyd Group Director, Dr. Vandana Arora Sethi, who elucidated on the question-of-the-hour: Overnight shift from real to virtual education or digital transformation focusing on “Digital Transformation – A Need for Gen Z & Gen Alpha. She shared her apprehended on the entire process of digitalization of an Institute and how to evolve with technology. Later, she emphasized two points “why go digital” and “who begins the change” Dr. Sethi also put her thoughts forward on the biggest challenge of this era for the students i.e., How to roll with the corona fear and to ease students in the uncertain times? Finding a solution to this challenge is going through the extensive student connection was impeccable. Lastly, she winded up her talk by the trends one could adopt while stay-put on the road ahead in education post-COVID.

The session was concluded by some follow-up questions from the participants’ end. Their comments on this questionnaire were in specific to their futuristic concerns where the uprightness of the virtual education in Pharmaceutical Sciences During and After Covid-19.