Georgia Tech exploring the possibility of establishing a post-graduate research institution in Hyderabad.

Georgia Institute of Technology and Infosys Technologies announced partnership on potential research and educational opportunities. A memorandum of understanding has been signed by Gary Schuster, Georgia Tech's provost and vice-president for academic affairs, and S. (Kris) Gopalakrishnan, Chief Executive Officer and managing director of Infosys Technologies, formalising the collaboration.

Georgia Tech is exploring the possibility of establishing a small, high quality post-graduate research institution in Hyderabad. The proposed Georgia Tech facility would include centres for excellence in information technology and information systems, energy systems, biotechnology and infrastructure studies. As part of the partnership, Infosys is planning to collaborate on research projects of mutual interest in these areas of technology. Moving forward, Georgia Tech and Infosys will create a roadmap to identify the necessary resources and infrastructure to transfer these technologies to market.

Since Infosys has a presence both in Atlanta and Hyderabad, there are collaborative opportunities in both locations, said Schuster. Such alliances are critical to our goal of developing a global university and towards enhancing closer educational, scientific and economic ties between the United States and India.

According to Schuster the new collaboration extends the existing partnership to the research arena. Georgia Tech faculty and Infosys engineers and scientists will now have the opportunity to work together on emerging computing and web technologies that promise to add new efficiencies of cost and scale to rapidly expand markets in retail, manufacturing, commerce, energy and finance, he said. The Human Resources Development Ministry of the Indian government has recently encouraged non-Indian universities to set up a presence in India through a forward-looking Foreign Universities Bill that has been recently introduced into the Indian parliament, added Vijay Madisetti, executive director of Georgia Tech's India Initiative.

We are hopeful that the passage of this bill will allow us to expand our proposed activities beyond the research focus to include an educational program that will offer Georgia Tech Ph.D. and master's degrees to students in India, at the start drawn primarily from the employees of leading corporations such as Infosys.

Georgia Tech currently has research and educational initiatives in France, Ireland, Singapore, Shanghai and Costa Rica. More information can be found on www.gatech.edu/campuses. Source: The Hindu 14/6/10