At the recent AI Impact Summit, industrialist Harsh Goenka offered his thoughts on the controversy surrounding Galgotias University. His scathing comment on X has since sparked a lot of discussion online.
Goenka compared the university’s attendance at the summit to a previous academic assertion associated with the school and expressed compassion for its pupils.
“The same university whose faculty once produced a paper stating that thali and bell vibrations may kill coronavirus is Galgotias, which is currently in the headlines for robots. Harsh Goenka, an industrialist, said, “My heart goes to the students of this university who would feel ashamed to say where they are studying.”
See the article here:
Following its rapid virality, the post sparked a flurry of user replies, many of which redirected the conversation to the difficulties encountered by students attending private universities in the face of increased scrutiny.
As one user put it, “Engineers, stop feeling ashamed of your university.” Students should not associate their value with the prestige of their college. Make your reputation more well-known than your college.Develop programming that is competitive. Increase your rank on LeetCode, CodeChef, HackerRank, and Codeforces. Use GitHub to ship projects. Participate in open source projects. Over time, skills will surpass paper degrees.
Another user emphasized the socioeconomic factors that influence the decision to pursue private education. “You know, there are kids from rural backgrounds whose parents have risked everything for the architecture, but just think of their predicament—finding a job in a market that is already oversaturated is so awful!”
A few responses were more critical of the organization.
The fourth wrote, “Galgotias’ deception has cleared the path for a framework to stop such false and deceptive assertions at prestigious public forums.”
Credibility develops reputation, yet publicity can increase visibility. The fifth wrote, “Universities must carefully defend that.”
What started the dispute?
The controversy started when Galgotias University claimed that its Center of Excellence had created a robotic dog named Orion, which it displayed at the AI Summit. Later, social media users recognized the robot as the Unitree Go2, a Chinese commercial product that costs a few lakh rupees.
Additionally, the institution claimed to have created a drone that could play football from scratch, but internet users immediately pointed out that this model was an imported commercial one.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology reportedly requested that the university remove its Bharat Mandapam stand as the outcry grew. When the request was not quickly fulfilled, authorities subsequently turned off the display’s power.
The university’s apology and response
At first, the institution stated that it had never claimed to have built the robot and that it was only using worldwide technologies for educational purposes. It eventually apologized formally, blaming a staff member’s misunderstanding for the controversy.
“We at Galgotias University would want to express our sincere regret for any confusion caused at the most recent Al Summit. One of our delegates, who was in charge of the tent, was ignorant. Despite not having the authority to speak to the media, she provided factually inaccurate information out of her excitement to appear on camera and her ignorance of the product’s technical origins,” the statement stated.
At high-profile technology demonstrations, especially those involving educational institutions, the episode has rekindled discussions about accountability, transparency, and legitimacy.
