IBM India announces Shared University Research (SUR) awards

IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, College of Engineering Pune, Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU) and PSG Tech Coimbatore selected for collaboration on Smarter Planet projects

IBM (NYSE:IBM) has announced prestigious Shared University Research (SUR) awards for different Smarter Planet projects in collaboration with five leading educational institutes of India - IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, College of Engineering Pune (CoEP), Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU) and PSG Tech, Coimbatore. The award, totaling USD 250,000, will include technical collaboration with IBM experts, access to IBM software and high performance computing required for the successful completion of projects related to healthcare and education.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Bhooshan Kelkar, Country Manager, University Relations, IBM India said, “The Shared University Research program is a very competitive, world wide program that promotes academia-corporate partnership to address some challenging problems faced by society. We hope that the collaboration between IBM experts and some of the brightest minds from academia will help provide innovative technology solutions that will bring healthcare and education closer to people.”

IBM India and PSG Tech, Coimbatore will work on leveraging benefits of ICT for a public health initiative across 10 villages in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. This SUR will help use High Performance Computing infrastructure to improve public health in urban and rural healthcare centers. It may also explore to create innovative communication channels based on mobile phone technology to educate the people on epidemics and their related preventive measures. The initiative will involve using the network of Primary Health centres run by the State and different NGOs to reach people across villages and provide basic information on healthcare, relevant to these areas.

The SUR project with Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU) is focused on intelligent ICT enabled education content delivery system for 300,000 students across 56 rural and urban centres in Maharashtra. Some centers are in remote parts of the state and many of the students are underprivileged.. While YCMOU will use and create the content necessary for the project, IBM will extend its collaboration technologies and later cloud computing technology to enhance the effectiveness of this initiative. The initiative will have capabilities of two-way discussions thereby facilitating a greater degree of collaboration between all participants.

The SUR project with IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi and College of Engineering Pune relates to building a Collaborative Cloud Platform. The project led by IIT Bombay will focus on facilitating large scale sharing and collaborative scientific research ion Education and Energy Management. An efficient collaborative cloud will help cut down operational costs, manage resources better and facilitate higher collaboration through increasing participation. The project is also expected to yield important insights and tools to advance the co-design of future computer systems and optimally aligned software applications.

About Shared University Research (SUR)

The IBM Shared University Research (SUR) Award is a worldwide award program designed to promote research in areas of mutual value and interest to IBM and universities. The program targets a wide variety of areas, ranging from life sciences, high-performance computing and energy technology, to digital data protection. The collaboration in an area of significant interest to the university and IBM is expected to foster both knowledge transfer and IT innovation.

IBM gives about 40 SUR awards each year globally. More than 22 SURs have already been given in India in last 12 years. Overall, IBM contributed 116.8 Milllion USD in 2010 to Universities worldwide through our Academic Initiative, University Relations Programs, Matching grants, PhD Fellowship awards, SUR awards, and other grants.

More information about IBM's university programs is available at www.ibm.com/press/university.