Despite coming from a small village, Pankaj was determined enough to get a good education and worked so hard that he went to Cornell University to pursue his PhD. And today, he is the Principal of Techno India NJR Institute of Technology.

Pankaj Porwal is the Principal at Techno India NJR Institute of Technology, Udaipur. He has been working in this college for the past eleven years now.

Pankaj belongs to Nikumbh village of Chittorgarh district. He says he had a childhood full of fun as he was never forced to study. But he himself developed some seriousness about studies and went to Chittor for his 11th & 12th, as he wanted to opt for Science as his subject which was unavailable in his village. Then he went to Kota for competitive exam preparation such as JEE and RPT and got selected in JEE. Eventually he joined Civil Engineering at IIT Bombay. He struggled to cope up with things initially as he was a Hindi medium student throughout and studying there was no less than a challenge. But he worked hard and managed to do well afterwards.

After his graduation, Pankaj appeared for JRE and got opportunities with full scholarships for higher studies from Stanford and Cornell Universities, but he was offered a fellowship at Cornell University, so he chose Cornell and did PhD in Applied Mechanics. Then he worked at Los Alamos National Lab for a couple of years. He came back to IIT Bombay and worked as an Assistant Professor for two years and came to Udaipur, as he wanted to go back to his native place. Coming here, he tried his hand in running a Coaching Institute with one of his friends for competitive exams in Science stream, but it did not work out. So he joined Techno India NJR as a Visiting Faculty and gradually he became permanent. Since then he has been providing his services as a Principal at this college.

Pankaj says at Techno India NJR, he looks after the academics of Civil and Mechanical Branch and lately he has moved into the area of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning along with teaching Computer Science also. He says the vision of this college is to set up a private institution around the lines of great institutions with a view to provide high quality world class education to the students of Udaipur and nearby areas who are unable to go out for further studies due to financial or any other constraints.

Pankaj says that Engineering is one of the most popular career choices amongst the young generation as Engineering is about using principles of science to design and build things. So he suggests that you should pursue Engineering only if you have the mindset of designing, building and assembling things. As far as success in Engineering is concerned, he says that support of friends and family is very important other than two essential things: focus and hard work.

Apart from work, Pankaj likes to read books and spend time with family and kids.