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IIT, Bombay, to set up 'School of IT'

It will be the first dedicated school for information technology to be set up by an IIT.

T O D A Y

• The gate-crasher • IIT's School of IT • TN's IT task force • VSNL-DoT merger • Exim Bank's IT deal • GIS meet coming up

It is understood that the board of governance of IIT, Bombay, will meet shortly to give the approval for setting up the school.

The School of IT, as it will be called, will become operational from June.

It will also be one of the first such schools to be fully funded by the industry. It is understood that the school, which will focus on emerging technologies in computing, will be set up at an initial cost of Rs 185 million and will incur an annual expenditure of Rs 35 million towards infrastructure and maintenance.

IIT, Bombay, has already entered deals for most of the funds that would be required and is in the process of arranging the balance resources. "The industry has committed about Rs 135 million towards this school, of which the former chief executive of Novell Inc, Kanwal Rekhi, who also happens to be an alumnus of IIT, Bombay, has committed $2 million (approximately Rs 85 million)," an IIT source has been quoted as saying.

The school will offer MTech in IT and PhD programmes, besides a post-graduate diploma in IT, which will be a subset of the MTech programme.

It is understood that it will start initially with 20 students before going up to 70.

"The school will offer its programmes to students with different backgrounds like chemical or mechanical engineering, but with an understanding of computing. As it is aimed at research, students will be able to concentrate on different areas in the application of IT, which would help industry," sources said.

The school is aimed at coming out with technologies five years down the line, which can be used by the domestic IT industry to gain a competitive edge in the global market.

"Since industry will fund the school and be closely associated with it, students will be able to concentrate their research activities on areas and technologies that the industry will need in the future," an IIT officer said.

The decision to set up a dedicated school for IT comes at a time when the state government also plans to set up an Indian Institute of Software Engineering in Pune in affiliation with the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, US.

This self-supporting institute is aimed at providing human resources to the IT industry and for boosting software exports.

- Compiled from the Indian media

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