Three MoUs to foster innovation, research and training

By Arun Kumar, Washington, Nov 22: India's apex industry chamber, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)), is set to sign three MoUs for cooperation with three leading US institutions.

To be signed here Monday during the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the first MoU with IC2 Institute at the University of Texas at Austin calls for the implementation of new, distinctive programmes in India with the aim of helping Indian innovators bring their ideas to the world.

With sponsorship from the Lockheed Martin Corporation, FICCI and IC2 Institute teamed together in March 2007 to launch a first of its kind initiative - "The India Innovation Growth Programme" with the prime objective of assisting Indian innovators across the country and across a diversified range of sectors to take their R&D work to global markets.

The programme has successfully completed three years and has signed 73 business deals in India and around the world. Major deals have been signed under the programme in the sectors of waste management, rural technology, life sciences, avionics and green technology.

FICCI and IC2 Institute have also jointly assessed 200 technologies from 26 Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) laboratories across India and seven licensing agreements have been finalised in India. Many other licensing agreements under this programme are in the pipeline for India and foreign markets.

The second MoU with the Polytechnic Institute of New York University commits the organizations to a culture of innovation in India.

Under this pact, NYU-Poly and FICCI will design and host activities to promote an understanding of how partnerships between government, industry, and educational institutions can spur advances in research and bolster economic activity in India.

The two organizations have agreed to bring their respective strengths to meet India's growing demand for world-class research and development facilities that attract global talent.

NYU-Poly, New York City's most comprehensive engineering and technology institutions of higher education, will showcase the successes of American models of private-public partnerships at events in India. FICCI in turn will engage academic, research, government, and business entities in the cultivation of public-private partnerships.

FICCI and NYU-Poly will also look at ways Indian academic, research, and business practices could be adopted in the US, making them more cost effective.

The third MoU with the Institute of International Education, Inc. (IIE) outlines an agreement to partner to promote and facilitate educational and training exchanges between the United States and India.

IIE, a leading not-for-profit educational and cultural exchange organization in the United States, will collaborate with FICCI to facilitate more student exchanges and build academic partnerships between the two countries.

The organizations will also work together to build the capacity of Indian higher education institutions to attract U.S. study abroad students to their campuses, and will build awareness of study abroad opportunities currently available in India for U.S. students, according to the memorandum.

The two organizations will promote educational partnerships through cooperation in activities such as FICCI's Higher Education Summit, the activities and services of the IIENetwork membership association of higher education institutions, and joint seminars for building awareness among Indian institutions regarding scholarship programmes that will help in enhancing faculty and research scholar cross mobility between the two countries.

Under the new agreement, IIE and FICCI will also cooperate on activities in India when IIE's President Allan E. Goodman and Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter lead a delegation of US higher education heads to India in March 2010.