Intel® Higher Education Program paves the way for greater cross-sector interaction in Tamil Nadu.

India, which has taken its place among the emerging economies of the world with its significant contributions in IT expertise, understands that in the knowledge economy today, technology is key to global competitiveness.

To achieve its goal of sustaining talent development in the face of fierce competition from regional economies in other parts of Asia, India's National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM*) has been leveraging on the Intel Higher Education Program in Tamil Nadu to enrich the quality of its graduates for the country's rapidly proliferating technology economy.

As part of a wider global initiative, the Intel Higher Education Program has introduced to India several technology initiatives aimed at raising tertiary education standards in the 21 st century, including a world-class curriculum developed by leading global universities, providing assistance to students studying engineering and supporting research programs that promote technology advancement. And in Tamil Nadu, the Intel Higher Education Program works specifically in collaboration with educators to help Indian students prepare for the IT demands of tomorrow through numerous internships, research grants, technology donations and knowledge base support, leveraging on Intel expertise and technology to augment existing university curriculum and lending real-world relevance to an otherwise academic learning environment.

Challenges

• India needs to sustain the output of talented IT professionals from top universities to feed global demand for IT services as well as to position itself as an IT hub.
• Tamil Nadu universities are also looking for industry collaboration projects to expose their students to advanced industry practices and further strengthen as well as homogenize Tamil Nadu's IT talent pool.

Approach

• Intel Higher Education Program collaborated with NASSCOM in working with top universities in Tamil Nadu to expand university curricula, engage in focused research, and support research programs that promote technology advancement.

Benefits

• Intel Higher Education Program works in collaboration with Tamil Nadu educators to help Indian students prepare for the IT demands of tomorrow.
• Through research grants and technology donations, the Intel Higher Education Program sows the seeds of advanced computing technology growth amongst the Tamil Nadu education sector.
• Intel Higher Education Program further leverages on Intel expertise to augment the existing curriculum offered by leading Tamil Nadu universities, lending real-world relevance to an otherwise academic learning environment.
• Intel Higher Education Program also allow Tamil Nadu universities to leverage on Intel's rigorous industry-oriented internships to deliver much needed experience and learning opportunities to promising students who work alongside industry professionals.

"CEG's educational focus have been augmented by the Intel Higher Education Program as well as donations from Intel, allowing several of our students to work on innovative projects with Intel and eventually progress towards post-graduate research."

- Dr. Ranjani Parthasarathy,
Department of Computer Science and Engineering College of Engineering,
Guindy (Anna University)

Personal Stories

Dr. Ranjani Parthasarathy, College of Engineering, Guindy (Anna University)

One educator to benefit from the Intel Higher Education Program is Dr. Ranjani Parthasarathy from the College of Engineering, Guindy (CEG) in Chennai, India.

According to Dr. Parthasarathy, CEG had needed to introduce industry-related electives to the university's existing curriculum. To do that, CEG turn to the Intel Higher Education Program for effective curriculum leverage.

"The university is always looking out for industry collaboration so as to better prepare our students for challenges in the working world. To that end, the Intel Higher Education Program has been extremely beneficial to our needs and requirements," says Dr. Parthasarathy.

Dr. Parthasarathy further revealed that to date, CEG collaboration with the Intel Higher Education Program has yielded two additional electives - multi-core and network processing, to its curriculum.

Under the Intel Higher Education Program, CEG also received network processor donations as well as grants for advanced computer architecture research from Intel.

This has enabled CEG, whose key areas of focus include processor architecture among other topics, to get several network processor-based projects off the ground.

"With the network processors, students can carry out online projects in the lab without using simulators, greatly enhancing the learning and research process," says Dr. Parthasarathy.

"In sum, Intel Higher Education Program has been invaluable in helping CEG push forward with our research initiatives and readying our students for innovative post¬graduate research as well as project placements within Intel itself," she adds.

With Intel involvement, CEG can now look forward to further curriculum development, sustaining the awareness, interest and resource bank of upcoming technology from a real-world industry source.

And Dr. Parthasarathy is confident that CEG will continue to grow from strength to strength in producing IT talents who will graduate to take their place among professionals who will continue to sustain India's position as an IT powerhouse.

Dr. V. Kamakoti, Indian Institute of Technology - Madras

Another educator who benefited from the Intel Higher Education Program is Associate Professor Dr. V. Kamakoti from the premier Indian Institute of Technology -Madras (IIT-M).

According to Dr. Kamakoti, his students at IIT-M benefit from two major components to its already impressive infrastructure - Education and research.

"The Intel Higher Education Program allows IIT-M to offer a more-industry-based education to our students, particularly in application programming," says Dr. V. Kamakoti, "In addition, we have beefed up our research capabilities, which will prove extremely invaluable in conducting workshops for various faculties and even for the industry."

He adds, "Besides curriculum support, Intel also provides valuable support for equipment and computer-aided tools with a sound processor architecture, which has been extremely useful in our research on various aspects of processor technologies today."

Dr Kamakoti should know. After all. he had spent the past six years researching different models of processor architectures while his students have gone on to do conduct post-graduate research based on work done through the Intel Higher Education Program.

Looking back on the progress thus far, Dr Kamakoti acknowledged that fruitful interaction and good critical response from Intel based on feedback has been central to the success of the Intel Higher Education Program for IIT-M.

"In research and education, what we really need is a good glimpse of practical issues that the industry face. This is not as readily available with other companies, who were often not altogether keen on letting students tackle real-world architecture issues, " says Kamakoti.

"The one major factor that interests us is the Intel's willingness in letting students tackle these very real challenges and letting the results of what they had achieved speak for themselves," he adds.

"Fruitful interaction and good critical response from Intel based on feedback was central to the success of the Intel Higher Education Program at IIT-M."

Dr. V. Kamakoti Department of Computer Science and Engineering Indian Institute of technology - Madras

"The Intel Higher Education Program allows PSG Tech to fully realize our philosophy of an industry-oriented IT education."

Dr. S. Jayaraman Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering PSG College of Technology -Coimbatore

As a result of the industry collaboration through the Intel Higher Education Program, IIT-M has started introducing advanced topics such as processor verification and processor architecture in their curriculum, which has since become a whole lot more industry-based.

The practical aspects of this shift cannot be underestimated, as industry-relevant topics are now condensed into classroom material for real-world learning and application.

As Dr. Kamakoti puts it, competition determines quality in India's top-notch IT industry and education sectors. And the Intel Higher Education Program augments that already high quality that IIT-M has set in its students, leading to an overall increase in quality that will stand IIT-M graduates in good stead as future IT professionals.

Dr. S. Jayaraman, PSG College of Technology - Coimbatore

Dr. S. Jayaraman from the PSG College of Technology also benefited similarly.

For Dr. Jayaraman, the benefits of the Intel Higher Education Program truly come in the form of considerable interaction with Intel on a daily basis, which sits in perfectly with its widely acclaimed industry-based teaching methodology.

He explains that these interactions not only occur between the college and Intel, which strengthens PSG Tech's already impressive industry ties considerably, but also between Intel and PSG Tech students.

"Under the Intel Higher Education Program, not only do are we able to place students on much-valued internships with Intel, the quality of these internships will also serve to benefit our students well in time to come," says Dr. Jayaraman.

"At PSG Tech, we always know that hands-on experience is the single most important aspect of the learning process. With an Intel internship under the Intel Higher Education Program, our students basically get to learn from the very professionals they'll be working with when they graduate. And this is critical not only for learning but also for instilling the confidence in actually knowing that what they've learnt is very much applicable in real-life scenarios," he adds.

Dr. Jayaraman goes on to acknowledge that that the Intel Higher Education Program is essentially a stepping stone for PSG Tech to continue meeting industry needs in producing skill IT talents.
Besides internships, the Intel Higher Education Program gives PSG Tech an industry-oriented framework to carry out research work in key areas such as multi-core processor design and programming, which is where computer processors are headed as clock speeds had begun to stagnate after years of growth.

"Intel not only helps us with the funding needed to establish a multi-core laboratory that has just turned fully operational, our curriculum has also been tweaked to reflect industry trends, allowing PSG Tech as an academic institute to fully align ourselves with current industry leanings. This is truly an invaluable step for us," says Dr. Jayaraman.

Already, PSG Tech's collaboration with the Intel Higher Education Program has yielded critical researches such as a quality of service model for 3G phone networks, a video over wireless local area network project and an Internet Service Provider feasibility project, among others and even Dr. Jayaraman cannot help but wonder where the Intel Higher Education Program will take his students next.