Ten tier two institutes to be developed as centres of excellence by Intel

Chennai: In an effort to bridge the gap between academic education and changing needs of industry, Intel India has announced the selection of 10 two tier institutes to be cultivated as centres of excellence to prepare university professors and students for a new paradigm of software development.

The initiative part of Intel's World Ahead Programme that aims to transform lives in developing communities through technology access, Internet connectivity, and education. The aim is to give students a hands-on experience and training in adapting to real-world
applications.

The world's largest computer chip maker Intel has selected the following ten institutions to be developed as centres of excellence. Six out of them belong to Tamil Nadu.

1 College of Engineering - Guindy, Chennai
2 Harcourt Butler Technological Institute, Kanpur
3 International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore
4 International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad
5 International Institute of Information Technology, Pune
6 Kalasalingham University, Krishnan Koil
7 PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore
8 Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology & Research Academy (SASTRA),
Thanjavur
9 Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai
10 Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum

The selected institutes would be established as centres of excellence to mentor other smaller institutes so that maximum number of educational institutes are geared for new technologies in the future. The ten selected institutes would enjoy the following benefits:

The institutes will mentored by a senior Intel technologist for the next two years

Equipment grant worth $1.5 lakh will be given to institutes for lab use

Intel will conduct training sessions and workshops to introduce computer science students and teachers to programmes which work on threaded, multi-core and multi-processor systems to maximise knowledge and performance

Intel will also provide course materials, 10-20 core2duo PCs, laptops powered by dual-core processors for instructor use in the classroom, as well as licenses for Intel® Software Development Products along with access to forums and technical support

In an endeavor to encourage faculties to participate more actively in research, Intel will support travel for faculties who get a paper published in conferences of international repute

Speaking at the programme, Manav Subodh, higher education manager, Intel India said, " The objective of this initiative is to educate today's science and engineering students and developers to architect, develop and debug the next generation of software applications for modern, multi-core platforms."

With mentorship from Intel technologists, the ten selected institutes aim to change their existing curriculum on computer architecture and start the new course by August 2007. The on-going Multi Core University initiative by Intel India aims to change the curriculum of close to 150 engineering institutes by end of 2008.