Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is in top 20 of the world
MILLION-DOLLAR tech centre for IISc
Prashanth G N TNN
Bangalore: A multi-million-dollar technology centre for knowledge sciences is set to be Bangalore’s New Year gift. In a collaboration that could be a first, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, the University of California, Santa Cruz and Infosys are in talks to set up a $1-million knowledge sciences research centre at IISc. The $1-million facility will turn into a $10-million one in phases. The brain behind the project is Ram Akella, an IISc alumnus and professor, Tech Services, UC Santa Cruz, who heads a major computer technology centre at the university. Akella told TOI: “We are also in talks with IBM and Yahoo and the government to help us establish the technology centre. Three US varsities will also join us later. Our university-industry-government collaboration could be India’s first.”Akella said he was looking at the centre to create a tranformational impact on knowledge services in India and globally in financial, healthcare, service centre management, CRM and BPO affairs. The centre is also looking at “search technologies and data plus text mining for web and knowledge management”. Akella is very passionate about what IISc should do:“We’ve to innovate and invest by picking new interdisciplinary areas which have societal impact — like Knowledge Sciences (fusing machine learning and data mining with business management), climate change, Earth sciences.” “The integration with international universities and the US industry will enable the institute to develop world-class research capability and achieve major international collaborations and impact,” says Akella. Akella has been to the Ivy leagues such as MIT, Harvard, Stanford, and to Infosys in India. A model he suggests is the success of Stanford — a university that has been giving rise to some of the finest tech start-ups in the US. In fact, one of the offshoots of the proposed centre is creating new entrepreneurships. “The Society for Innovation and Development has done wonderful work at IISc. We would love to build on this culture. I’ve seen MIT and Harvard. If I look back at what IISc has done and what it can do, I can safely place IISc is in the top 20 of the world.” More muscle to IISc The proposed tech centre will add to the existing research undertaken in the Computer Science Applications Centre and the Supercomputer Education and Research Centre. Together, the three centres can build a culture of IT start-ups similar to the one in Stanford University. Applications in nanotechnology will also be a focus for the new centre as IISc already has a state-of-the-art nano centre coming up.
Times of India Dated15th December 2008 page-5
Prashanth G N TNN
Bangalore: A multi-million-dollar technology centre for knowledge sciences is set to be Bangalore’s New Year gift. In a collaboration that could be a first, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, the University of California, Santa Cruz and Infosys are in talks to set up a $1-million knowledge sciences research centre at IISc. The $1-million facility will turn into a $10-million one in phases. The brain behind the project is Ram Akella, an IISc alumnus and professor, Tech Services, UC Santa Cruz, who heads a major computer technology centre at the university. Akella told TOI: “We are also in talks with IBM and Yahoo and the government to help us establish the technology centre. Three US varsities will also join us later. Our university-industry-government collaboration could be India’s first.”Akella said he was looking at the centre to create a tranformational impact on knowledge services in India and globally in financial, healthcare, service centre management, CRM and BPO affairs. The centre is also looking at “search technologies and data plus text mining for web and knowledge management”. Akella is very passionate about what IISc should do:“We’ve to innovate and invest by picking new interdisciplinary areas which have societal impact — like Knowledge Sciences (fusing machine learning and data mining with business management), climate change, Earth sciences.” “The integration with international universities and the US industry will enable the institute to develop world-class research capability and achieve major international collaborations and impact,” says Akella. Akella has been to the Ivy leagues such as MIT, Harvard, Stanford, and to Infosys in India. A model he suggests is the success of Stanford — a university that has been giving rise to some of the finest tech start-ups in the US. In fact, one of the offshoots of the proposed centre is creating new entrepreneurships. “The Society for Innovation and Development has done wonderful work at IISc. We would love to build on this culture. I’ve seen MIT and Harvard. If I look back at what IISc has done and what it can do, I can safely place IISc is in the top 20 of the world.” More muscle to IISc The proposed tech centre will add to the existing research undertaken in the Computer Science Applications Centre and the Supercomputer Education and Research Centre. Together, the three centres can build a culture of IT start-ups similar to the one in Stanford University. Applications in nanotechnology will also be a focus for the new centre as IISc already has a state-of-the-art nano centre coming up.
Times of India Dated15th December 2008 page-5
