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IIIT-H New Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Get a Flying Start
The International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad’s center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship get on to a good start. The center is part of IIIT-H initiatives to combine research and encourage innovation and entrepreneurship with highest quality education. The center was set up to imbibe creative, strategic, managerial and transformation thinking amongst students
SETU software systems became the first company to be incubated & housed inhouse in IIIT-H, with the base technology offered from the CEO, Prasad Pingali’s PhD work at the institute’s LTRC lab. The co-founder of this company is Prof. Vasudeva Varma, who is also the chief scientist in the company. SETU Software system is a product & services company operating in the area of Indian Language search & information extraction.
As part of their academic partnership within 2 months of setting up the innovation center, SUN Microsystems extended support to the Institute by giving servers and software platforms. The Institute received financial support to projects from Governmental scheme DSIR’s TePP and DIT’s initiates for entrepreneurship development.
IIIT-H celebrated its foundation day with a series of lectures and talks by leading academicians, business leaders in its campus. The programmes were held on September 1 and 2, 2008. During the 2 day program, Rajeeva Ratna Shah, Former Member-Secretary, Planning Commission, Govt. of India, Raj Reddy, Carnegie Mellon University, USA and Narendra Ahuja, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. This was followed by a panel discussion by K C Reddy, Chairman, A P State Council of Higher Education and Gautam Barua, Director, IIT Guwahati spoke on academic and industry related subjects.
In his address commemorating 10 years of IIIT-H Rajeev Sangal, Director, IIIT-H said that it was the only institute which is uniquely structured, in the country allowing undergraduate students to participate in the ongoing research. The institute has been able to design special undergraduate programme structured along with a postgraduate programme that enable students have the flexibility in selecting courses and undertaking projects.
The afternoon session focused on the subject of “Transforming Apex Institutions to Meet New Challenges.” The Speakers were M Anandakrishnan, Chairman, BOG, IIT Kanpur & Former Vice-Chancellor, Anna University, M S Ananth, Director, IIT Madras. This was followed by a Panel Discussion by M S Ananth, Director, IIT Madras, S G Dhande, Director, IIT Kanpur, P Rama Rao, Former Vice-Chancellor, University of Hyderabad.
Today, the institute attracts top attention in campus recruitments by the corporate world. With the B.Tech (Hons) and MS students getting placed in all the top research companies with an average salary of Rs. 7.20 lakh per annum. IIIT-H good research environment for students, demonstrates such high level of placement opportunity. The highest salary offered was Rs. 12 lakh per annum.
The institute’s research exchange programme with leading research groups in the world helped students to gain deeper understanding of research initiatives and spend quality time at the participatory university abroad. The aim of the institute was to reach 100 Ph.D admissions per year by 2012 and thus placing it along with leading research institutes in the world. This year IIIT-H admitted around 125 research students taking the total number to 307 with 84 Ph.D students and 223 MS students.
To facilitate development of inter-disciplinary research as well as a seamless flow of knowledge, the Institute does not have departments. It has research centers instead. Faculty is attached to the centers and labs for conducting research. It participates in the conduct of academic programmes which belong to the whole Institute and are not owned by any department. Help in the form of tuning business plans, exposure to industry, networking by organizing bar camps and product development workshops, is also undertaken. A very proactive effort is on to identify socially relevant & high impact projects which require IT intervention.
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