May 20, 2010
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham signed a comprehensive Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay on May 10, 2010 in Mumbai.
 

This broad-based agreement to work collaboratively on projects and problems of national and international scale and importance was signed into effect by the Vice Chancellor of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Dr. P. Venkat Rangan and the Director of IIT-B, Dr. Devang Khakhar in the presence of senior administrators from both universities.

“The MoU signifies the formalization of our mutual relationship that has taken form over the last few years,” stated Dr. Venkat. “Many significant joint projects have been initiated between the two institutions and we hope that this MoU will take our partnership to the next level.”
 

Faculty from the two universities has worked together on projects in natural language processing, material sciences and nanotechnology. In addition, one of the first deployments of A-View, Amrita’s flagship e-learning platform, was at IIT-B.
 

“IIT-B engaged extensively with Amrita for the development and deployment of the Amrita Virtual Interactive World (A-View),” added Dr. Venkat. “This world-class e-learning platform has emerged as the preferred system of choice for Government of India’s National Mission for Education using ICT.”
 

Collaborative, path-breaking research is not new to Amrita. Considered as India’s leading research and teaching institution today, Amrita has over 150 international and national tie-ups with top universities, research bodies and corporations.
 

MoUs are in place with several US and European universities including Harvard, Berkeley, Princeton, University of California, Royal Institute of Technology-Stockholm and Milan for research, collaborative programs, internships, faculty and student exchange.
 

Annually, over 150 Amrita students are selected for full-semester internships and exchange programs at several of these universities.
 

In addition, Amrita actively engages with institutions of national importance on projects such as the building of a collaborative multimedia network to connect all Technology Business Incubators of the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board.
 

In collaboration with IIT Delhi, virtual labs are being developed in various disciplines of science and engineering to enable the effective learning of basic and advanced concepts through remote experimentation.
 

Yet another project focuses on multimedia-enriched computerized vocational training programs targeting the illiterate and neo-literate sections of society, in collaboration with the IITs, IIIT Hyderabad and the Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Government of India.
 

We expect that the new MoU with IIT-B will also spawn several such important projects in due course of time.