Context: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the post-Covid world will be about re-learning, re-thinking and re-inventing and our government is fully committed to this principal. That is to reform, perform and transform. Speaking at the IIT 2020 Global Summit on Friday, the Prime Minister said, "There is no sector left out from India's reforms". The prime minister said two years later, in 2022 India marks 75 years since Independence and urged the Pan IIT movement to set an even higher benchmark for "giving back to India". He urged the IIT alumni to share more of their ideas and inputs on how India can mark 75 years of its freedom. Noting that a large number of IIT alumni are in global leadership positions and their strong networks are spread across industry, academia, arts, governments, the prime minister urged the Indian Tech diaspora to debate, discuss and contribute to solutions in the emerging New World Tech Order. 
Key highlights of PM speech 

• India is witnessing a sea change in the way it works.Like , IITs produced aero-space engineers, there was not a strong domestic industrial eco-system to employ them.
• India has got record investment and much of this investment has come in the technology sector.
• He said "I urge you to debate, discuss and contribute to solutions in the emerging New World Tech Order". The responsibility is heavy, but I know that your shoulders are capable.

Role of Top Institutions

• By creating a quality workforce: The modern workplace is in a constant state of evolution. Even within the last decade, job roles and the skills required to succeed in them have changed enormously, with technological advancements being a key factor.  The higher education sector is pivotal in delivering training to people at all stages of their careers, from students and recent graduates to senior managers.
• Skilled manpower: Skills training has an immensely positive impact on the wider economy. A well-trained, highly-skilled workforce is better prepared for the challenges and opportunities of the modern workplace. Staff with the right expertise work more efficiently and confidently than those struggling to keep up with the changing demands of their roles. Ultimately, a skilled workforce increases productivity, boosts output, and propels growth in the wider economy.
• Drive Innovation: A key role of higher education institutions is to drive innovation, with the aim of finding solutions to global challenges in areas that matter to society, such as healthcare, environmental protection, resource security, international development, and population trends.
• By Increasing Employability: Applicants are faced with a highly-competitive job market, in which their qualifications might not be enough to secure the kind of work they desire. As the economy moves further toward competency-based recruitment, with its focus on skills and experience over pure academics, graduates and established professionals must be armed with the tools they need to find and succeed at work. Higher education institutions are critically important.
• Upskill Existing Workforces: As digitisation changes the landscape for working professionals, higher education can provide them with the opportunity to enhance their existing knowledge and learn new skills. For employers, this has a positive impact on productivity, output, and staff morale. It also helps companies to drive efficiency and thus profitability.
• Boost Graduate Earning Power: Graduates with the right knowledge and skills have the ability to demand higher salaries, as they are equipped to make significant contributions to the revenue and growth of the companies they work for. This feeds back into the rankings and employment prospects lists, strengthening the reputation of universities as both centres of innovation and places where the future of the economy is made.
• Collaborate Between Education and Business: In the last decade, there has been substantial growth in the number of research deals between companies and universities.   It’s helpful for universities and their collaborative partners in industry to be geographically close in order to create research hubs that attract the best academics and continued industrial investment.
• Feed into a Knowledge-Based Economy: A knowledge-based economy is characterized by dependence on a highly-skilled, well-educated, and technically-minded workforce. It makes use of advancements in technology alongside intellectual capital to move away from material consumption and aim toward an economy built on knowledge and data. The higher education sector is a natural partner to the knowledge-based economy. As the source of advanced learning and new information from research, universities help train the workforce of tomorrow while supporting the innovations of today. Knowledge creation has been identified by economists as a key driver of economic growth.

The higher education sector has a wide-ranging, proven influence on the economy. Its confluence with business provides commercial value to innovation, while academic instruction and skills training help individuals and organizations to have the tools to succeed in a knowledge-based economy. Thus higher institutions are important for achieving $5 trillion economy mark.

Road Ahead

• India is far better placed than it was a few years ago as far as technology is concerned what we need going forward is we need better training we also have to ensure that the services side of things is covered, what we need to focus on is to ensure that the product side is covered too. We need a lot more R&D invest a lot more on research the govt. is doing all that it can really as far as technology is concerned. The private sector also need to pull up its stock and try complement what the government is doing. Apart from this we need to come together and bring about a mindset change and only then we can truely achieve what we want to achieve.