On December 7, 2005, 15 leading United States universities, including Harvard, Yale and Princeton, will join Amrita University, the Indian Space Research Organization and the Indian government's Department of Science & Technology in a project to enhance higher education and research in India.
The memorandum of understanding for this venture will be signed in New Delhi after which it will have 20 US varsities in its fold considering that five had signed it in July during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's US visit.
The US universities will depute top faculty to teach and guide research projects from Amrita University's Coimbatore campus via ISRO's educational satellite, EduSat.
The lectures will eventually be beamed to 300 university campuses across India.
President A P J Abdul Kalam will launch the venture on December 8 at 1 pm from Rashtrapati Bhavan via EduSat. Distinguished academic leaders representing the US universities signing the MOU will participate in the launch from the Coimbatore campus of Amrita University.
The President will later address 11 Indian universities.
The 11 varsities are IIT-Madras, IIScBangalore, Anna UniversityMadras, NITSurat, RECSuratkal, Symbiosis Institute of Computer EngineeringPune, JNTU College of EngineeringAndhra Pradesh, Manipal Institute of TechnologyManipal, University College of Engineering, Osmania University, VTUBelgaum, and four campuses of the Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham.
The initiative will focus on a broad range of areas like engineering and computer science, information and communication technologies, materials science and manufacturing, and nanotechnology.
It will also introduce and forge collaborative research partnerships between Indian and US researchers, particularly in interdisciplinary, international, and globally challenging scientific and engineering problems.