IIT-Gandhinagar, Nielsen tie up to benefit students

As part of the IIT-Nielsen tie-up, Nielsen will fund several Nielsen Awards annually at the institute thus enabling undergraduate students to participate in international conferences, workshops and internships.

In a bid to provide global opportunities to its undergraduate students, the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar (IIT-Gn) on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding with global information and measurement company, Nielsen.

Under the agreement, Nielsen will fund several Nielsen Awards annually at the institute to enable undergraduate students to participate in international conferences, workshops and internships that offer them broad global exposure.

For Nielsen India, IIT-Gn being the only IIT to offer a course in cognitive science emerged as a favourite since the research firm itself delves into cognitive science for consumer behaviour mapping. Moreover, the openness of IIT-Gn to work with private institutions too attracted Nielsen to sign the MoU, said Piyush Mathur, president, Nielsen India.

"Talent has been at the forefront to our growth and success and we pay great emphasis on endorsing it. We have been working with IIT Gandhinagar for some time and have found a great pool of talent, who if groomed well can become future industry leaders. We are looking to encourage these young minds and hone their skills by providing them the necessary opportunities both domestically and internationally," said Mathur.

In addition, short-listed IIT Gandhinagar students will receive opportunities to interact with and be mentored by senior executives at Nielsen during their overseas visits.

"In an increasingly globalised world, the Institute places great emphasis on the internationalisation of its curriculum. Already the Institute has a very high proportion of visiting professors from abroad, who bring diversity to the campus and our academic programmes. Nielsen's support will enable us to significantly scale up and expand the range of international opportunities for our undergraduate students. We believe that brings a distinctive edge to our undergraduate experience," said Sudhir Jain, director, IIT Gandhinagar.

While initially at least 10-15 students are set to benefit from the MoU, the number may rise in near future.

Meanwhile, Jain added that the institute is scaling up its student capacity in the new permanent campus that is coming up near Palej in Gandhinagar.

According to Jain, IIT-Gn will initially have 2400 students at its new permanent campus at any given point of time.

Nielsen is a global information and measurement company with leading market positions in marketing and consumer information, television and other media measurement, online intelligence, mobile measurement, trade shows and related properties.