Panaji, Jul 6 (IANS): Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Tuesday chaired a meeting with the heads of top educational institutions of the state to discuss economic and social development of the coastal state.

Sawant discussed various issues pertaining to the state with the Vice Chancellor of Goa University, Deans of IIT Goa, and Directors of NIT, Goa Institute of Management, and BITS Goa.

"We desire to partner with top academicians from these institutions to work on state-specific problems such as human capital development at the time of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and greater use of technology in solving the problems of society, rural livelihood and development, sustainable development of natural resources such as forest and water, waste management, smart and sustainable development of tourism, growth of infrastructure, and implementation of the New Education Policy," Sawant said.

Sawant said that heads of these top academic institutions talked about their expertise in various fields and offered to work with the state government on the ideas proposed to them.

Sawant advised them to identify five areas of expertise for every institute, which will be examined by the state government to partner with them on common areas of interest and priority.

He stated that this arrangement will be mutually beneficial and the state will benefit from the top quality research work carried out in these institutions. The institutes too in turn will benefit from working on real life problems.