“Through this holding of hands and sharing of experiences, new horizons will open up in the highest realms of science and technology to those thirsting for knowledge in India and other parts of the world — especially students, teachers and researchers.” With these words, Amma had inaugurated the Indo-US initiative at Amrita about three years ago. This past week, when the first batch of students graduated from our Bangalore Campus with degrees from both Amrita and State University of New York (SUNY), an important milestone was achieved in the realization of this vision.
 
“Without Amma’s vision and leadership, the Management of Information Technology Enabled Services (MITES) degree program could not have been successfully implemented,” said Dr. John Thomas from SUNY, Buffalo. Dr. Thomas spent several weeks at Amrita to teach classes to MITES students. Added School of Management Dean Arjang Assad, “In addition to content related to IT services management, students received a solid grounding in key areas such as finance and accounting. Plus they developed skills in leadership and strategic thinking.”
 
Fifty four students graduated after completing an eighteen month course of study. The students were all full-time employees of IT organizations in the city. Classes were conducted over weekends in the state-of-the-art Indo-US center at Amrita’s campus in Bangalore. Professors were drawn both from the Amrita School of Business at Coimbatore and the School of Management at SUNY, Buffalo. “Infrastructure for conducting the program was world class, certainly on par with the corporate training classrooms at the best IT organizations,” stated graduating student Nandhini of HP.
 
Two new twinning degree programs, one in engineering and one in management, were also announced on this occasion. The first, designed for those in the computing industry, will enable students to earn an MS degree in Embedded Systems from SUNY Buffalo as well as Amrita. The second is for students interested in the management of IT systems; they will earn an MS/MBA from SUNY Buffalo and Amrita. Students of both programs will take some of the courses at SUNY’s campus at Buffalo in the US; the rest of the coursework will be completed here at Amrita. “We look forward to sending students from Buffalo to study at Amrita,” said SUNY President, Dr. John B Simpson in his address. “Please know that your achievements are a source of great pride to the UB community in Buffalo,” he added.

February 10, 2009
Bangalore Campus