Dr. Bhushan Ambade
At 56, Dr. Ambade is a Civil Engineering faculty member at Government Polytechnic, Nagpur, a motivational speaker, and, by his own reckoning, a student for life. The wall behind him during our conversation tells the story better than any resume could: eleven NPTEL certificates hung in neat rows, with five more waiting to go up by Monday.
His entry into NPTEL came through a nudge, the kind that only a persistent colleague can deliver. “My colleague Mr. Nitesh pinched me every time to join NPTEL courses,” he recalls with a laugh. The nudging worked. In January 2020, Dr. Ambade registered for six courses in a single semester and walked away with his first NPTEL believer certificate. That one certificate, he says, was all the motivation he needed. What followed was not occasional dabbling. Since 2020, Dr. Ambade has accumulated 16 NPTEL badges and domain stars, making him, as he notes with quiet pride, the only person at Government Polytechnic Nagpur to have done so. He has not missed a semester since.
His course choices reflect a deliberate philosophy. As an Environmental Engineer, he gravitated first toward subjects in his own domain, but quickly broadened his reach to ethics in engineering, education for sustainable development, and personality development. The thread connecting all of them is intention.
“I want to acquire advanced knowledge that will benefit my students, society, and the country,”
he says. These are not throwaway words. When two of his former diploma students showed up at his door one afternoon, asking how to set up an NPTEL account and choose their first courses, he sat with them for an hour and walked them through everything.
Managing six courses alongside a full-time teaching role and family life is not a small task. Dr. Ambade is straightforward about how he makes it work: evenings at home, a cup of black tea every two to three hours, and a wife who has been quietly indispensable to the whole enterprise. “My wife prepares black tea for me and motivated me in this study,” he says. “So thanks to her.” His sons have both left for their own studies, and the resulting quiet has simply translated into more time for learning.
When asked what those 16 certificates mean to him beyond the paper itself, the answer comes easily: “It is a symbol of educational excellence.” Looking ahead, Dr. Ambade’s curiosity is turning toward applications of AI in Civil Engineering, particularly in pollution reduction and water management. He also has a request for NPTEL directly: introduce courses on ancient Indian knowledge systems, on the educational legacy of Nalanda and Takshashila, so that a new generation understands the depth of what came before.
He plans to register for at least six courses every semester for the rest of his life. Not for credentials. Not for career advancement. Simply because, as he puts it,
“Every person is a student until the end of their life.”
~written Elsa Prasad