IBM celebrates innovation & education at IIT Madras

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today hosted IBM Day at The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM) to celebrate new opportunities associated with emerging technologies, innovation, research and education. The objective of this special day was to educate students on important industry topics such as high performance computing, SSME (Service Science, Management and Engineering) and IBM India University Programs for Faculty, Researchers, and Students. This event is a part of IBM's efforts to collaborate with academia in India and build interest among students to pursue a broad range of careers in research, business and technology.

Key sessions at IBM Day were addressed by Dr. C Mohan, IBM India Chief Scientist and IBM Fellow, Dr. Daniel Dias, Director, India Research Laboratory, Manish Gupta, Head, STG Lab Services with other representatives from IBM and IIT Madras. The special highlight of the day was a Cell Programming demonstration.

Commenting on the event Dr Amol Mahamuni, Program Manager - University Relations, IBM India said "Participating in IBM Day at the IITs, is an endeavor by IBM to engage with India's premiere engineering colleges and universities to foster greater innovation and technology collaborations Our objective is to not only uncover new sources of talent, but also to encourage students to take risks and think differently to generate disruptive ideas."

Adding further, Mr. Mahamuni said," At IBM, we believe that to succeed in the new global economy organizations must breed a 'culture of innovation' that supports the cross-pollination of ideas from a wide array of inter-disciplinary disciplines. In today's increasingly dynamic and competitive world, it is critical that business, government and academia come together to shape a new framework for innovation - one that addresses skills, R&D, government initiatives, measurement and labor and trade policies that will strongly position India for prosperity."

Through its Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS) Program, IBM offers PG students such as M.Tech, M.S. and Ph.D students from premier Engineering institutes in India access to IBM products, technology and research areas along with the vast IBM resources, with the goal of solving research problems of utmost importance to software developers.

IBM supports PhD fellowships, faculty sabbaticals and forges lasting technical collaboration with eminent Professors from top institutes of the country.

IBM encourages university innovation through a variety of outreach programs that range from consultation on curriculum development, to teaching in the classroom through the IBM Transition to Teaching Program which is building a cadre of well-trained math and science teachers with IBM-honed experience to help develop the next generation of technical leaders in grades kindergarten through 12. IBM deploys over 2,000 University Ambassadors worldwide who lecture on campus and provide mentoring to students. IBMers deliver these lectures in Universities on various technology and non-technology areas of IBM's interest. The lectures delivered include Innovation, SOA, Linux, RFID etc.

Prof. T. T. Narendran, Dean Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored, IITM said "We are entering an exciting phase of innovation in India. The India Institute of Technology, Madras has established itself as a premier centre for teaching, research and industrial consultancy in the country. Research at IIT Madras is nurtured through various academic programmes run by the departments and through sponsored programmes funded by national organizations and the industry. We look forward to joint collaboration with IBM to take these activities to the next level of international presence."

In India, IBM has relationships in India with a number of educational institutions including the IITs at Delhi, Kanpur and Chennai, and the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and Anna University. IBM has also set up an IT Center in Mumbai in association with Victoria Memorial School for the Blind to impart IT education to visually impaired persons.

IBM has also spearheaded a series of initiatives, inviting hundreds of faculty from universities in a call for action. IBM's University Relations' teams have been partnering with academia to drive evolving open standards-based IT skills, essentially "in demand" skills for an "on demand world". Some of the other activities under the University Relations Initiative include: developing strategic linkages with universities/colleges; assisting colleges with curriculum development and instructional material; helping colleges develop consistent, high quality curricula for leading and emerging technologies; promoting high quality education - by providing state-of-the-art support from IBM; evangelizing Open Standards technologies, critical for the future of IT industry.

IBM provides a broad range of open standards-based offerings and no charge benefits to faculty and students, including the latest technologies in open source and IBM software, remote access to hardware, course materials, training and other resources, and distributes Shared University Research awards that enable professors to focus their research on issues of mutual interest to IBM and universities worldwide.

Sourced From: Vox Public Relations