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Trade Commissioners shop for software in Pune

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CIOL Bureau
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PUNE: Trade commissioners from seven nations around the globe spent a day in

Pune to get a first hand feel of the industrial progress made by the city in

software development besides the automotive and manufacturing sectors.

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Impressed by the effort undertaken by the Finolex group under the

chairmanship of P P Chhabria in establishing the International Institute of

Information Technology (I2IT) at the Hinjewadi Infotech Park, the trade envoys

spent time exploring the possibilities of joint collaborative efforts in

advanced IT education and research. The delegates also looked at software

development and technology development efforts with a view to explore investment

opportunities in various projects incubated in the I2IT's nursery of start-ups

seeded by students and professors along with technology entrepreneurs.

Doug Patterson, consul and senior trade commissioner of Canada who visited

the city for the third time found the prospects of the information technology

corridor between Mumbai and Pune exciting. He believed that there was a distinct

possibility of exploring opportunities in the advanced IT education front.

Sonia Grinceri, regional director, Western Australian Trade Office, tried to

explore the twinning effort between the Western Australian University and I2IT.

Joseph Koch, deputy consul general, Switzerland, said that India was far ahead

of Switzerland in terms of software technology and hoped that his country would

take a few lessons from India in encouraging this sector. Maarten Reuchlin,

consul general of the Netherlands, was looking forward to meeting people from

Dutch companies such as Philips to understand the business scenario in the city.

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Bhatkar said that the institute had recently signed an agreement with Good

Inc. (GI), South Korea to provide advanced IT education to Korean students. This

is the first institute in the country to provide IT education to Korean students

under the agreement. Over a 100 students will be trained at the institute. The

first batch will consist of 32 students.

Established with a capital outlay of Rs. 20 crore, the institute has the

capacity to train 1024 students at a time. Among the courses offered are a one

year post-graduate diploma in advanced information technology course which has

two distinct specialization tracks — one in advanced web applications and

eBusiness applications development and the second in advanced internet

networking and advanced VLSI and embedded web technologies. Doctoral research

programs are being planned with leading universities as well as with the

University of Bremen., institute director Vivek Sawant said.

Meanwhile, I2IT has announced young innovator awards in different categories.

The idea of the awards was mooted by Dr Raghunath Mashelkar, director general of

the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The categories

include best project idea of the year and best project of the year. The team or

the individual will have to present a poster on the theme along with the entry

that is open to all institutions. Around 850 colleges across the country have

already been contacted by the institute.

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