Students must continue to dream big, innovate: Naga Chaitanya

Actor Naga Chaitanya inspires students at VIT Chennai, emphasizing education, originality, and dreams for the future.

Actor Naga Chaitanya on Saturday urged students to dream big, continue to innovate, and give their best to education.

Interacting with students on the final day of the ninth edition of Vibrance, Vellore Institute of Technology  (VIT) Chennai’s international cultural and sports festival, he said that students should retain their originality and not just follow others. Speaking about his career, he said his dream role in a biopic would be that of his grandfather, Nageswara Rao. He said he would love to act under directors Mani Ratnam and S.S. Rajamouli.

On his latest film, Thandel, he said that portraying the role of the central character, Raju, was very challenging. “We wanted the outside world to know about the lives of such fishermen and the difficulties they faced,” he said.

VIT Founder-Chancellor G. Viswanathan spoke about his long-time connection with Andhra Pradesh and how he took part in the Jai Andhra agitation. He said that as far as VIT was concerned, he believed that education was the only weapon that can fight poverty. “We started the Universal Higher Education Trust, which has provided 10,000 scholarships so far to students from difficult backgrounds. The teaching and non-teaching staff of our campuses have donated a day’s salary, and that came to close to ₹1 crore, which is being given as scholarships,” he said.

VIT vice-president G.V. Selvam was also present on the occasion.

The overall cultural championship trophy was bagged by the students of SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, Chennai.

Over 20,000 students from various colleges in the country and students from 16 countries took part in the cultural festival.