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Carnegie Mellon forays into Indian IT education

BS ICE Bureau

The Rs 2 billion Shri Sivasubramaniya Nadar Educational and Charitable Trust, a non-profit institution, founded by HCL Technologies chairman Shiv Nadar, on Monday announced an agreement with the Institute for Software Research International of Carnegie Mellon University to offer software engineering education in India.

The collaboration would impart cutting edge education in information technology and offer inter-disciplinary research through SSN School of Advanced Software Engineering, located near Madras, Nadar told reporters.

Nadar added that the trust, which has already invested about Rs 560 million in SSNSASE, would invest an additional Rs 200 million this year.

According to Nadar, SSNSASE would offer courses in master of science and information technology/software engineering (MS IT /SE) degree in India. It will cover e-commerce, networking, robotics, artificial learning, and security among others.

Pointing out that the institute is targeting 1,000 undergraduate, 1,000 post graduate and 300-200 doctoral students, Nadar said, "The institute will be totally self-funded."

Financial assistance will be extended to some of the students to part-finance the course which costs at least Rs 400,000 per course, Nadar said. However, the scholarships come with a conditionality: students cannot take up jobs outside India for a minimum of three years.

"The scholarship could extend to Rs 1 million," Nadar said.

According to Nadar, projects and technology developed by the researchers of the institute and capable of solving the social problems of India, will be licensed to companies for deployment on a non-commercial basis.

The institute is currently working on technologies that will facilitate working on computers in multiple languages simultaneously.

Nadar pointed out the institute would also look at widening the scope in software engineering arena to offer doctorate programmes.

Commenting on the alliance, Raj Reddy, professor of computer science and robotics school of computer science, CMU said, "Students successful in the CMU's validation test, at the completion of the course, will be assigned a three month real time project in India, followed by a six-month practical programme in the US, leading to a masters degree from CMU."

"The aim is to provide best in class education in information technology in India. To begin with, the institute will admit 30 students who will be trained by the faculty at SSNSASE," Nadar said.

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