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.
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.
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.