Agreed to exchange and cooperate with Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), which is one of the top three engineering universities of the world
[Nov 16, 2009]
Yeungnam University (president Lee, Hyo-Soo) and one of the world's top 3 engineering schools IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) have become cooperative partners for education and research. Currently, the only Korean universities that agreed to have exchange with IIT are Yeungnam University, KAIST and Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology.
On the morning of the 16th, Yeungnam University and IIT agreed on an MOU for exchange of professors and students in the engineering field, as well as for joint researches. Thus, starting from the upcoming semester, two students in their doctorates degree program at IIT are scheduled to come to study at Yeungnam University and the two universities have agreed to focus on fostering elites in the engineering field.
President Lee, Hyo-Soo stated, "With the Korean-Indian CEPA (Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement) going into effect from January 1 of next year, exchanges in not only the economy, but also culture and people will also increase." He added, "We hope that this agreement will be able to foster human resources who can act as a bridge between the two nations through expanded educational cooperation."
IIT, which was founded in 1959, is known as the 'MIT of India' and has spearheaded the science-technology development of India. IIT, which is where the many brilliant men are gathered, acts as a 'talents training school' for the Indian and the global economy. Graduates from this school includes Narayana Murthy, chairman of the IT company 'Infosys', Vhinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems, Arun Sarin, CEO of Vodafone in England, and Rajat Gupta, executive director of McKinsey. In result, 15% of the founders of companies in Silicon Valley, USA are IIT alumni and the cream of the crop of the global business world is filled with people from IIT. Accordingly, the competition to get into IIT is almost like 'war'. The competition for admission to IIT is on average 100:1 and people in India prepare 3 to 4 years to get admitted.
For 10 years since its opening, it conducted the 'Kanpur Indo-American Programme' receiving the support of 9 US universities (M.I.T., UC Berkeley, Cal Tech, Princeton, Carnegie-Mellon University, University of Michigan, Ohio State, Case Institute of Technology and Purdue). After establishing the first department of computer engineering of India in 1963, in 1995 it was ranked the third in the world by the British The Times in the 'World University Ranking of Engineering Schools' following MIT and UC Berkeley, upgrading its position as one of the most prestigious universities.
This partnership between the two universities is owed to Professor Ashutosh Sharman (left) who will be teaching students at the Yeungnam University School of Mechanical Engineering for five years from September. Despite his young age at 48, he is the only chair-professor at IIT and is a member of the Indian National Science Academy. Furthermore, in the past five years he has published over 70 theses in SCI level journals and his 10 most renown theses have been cited over 1,000 times, thus proving his global research capacities. In particular, his paper published in 'Science' 2007 contributed greatly in the development of micro and nano technologies, and he is the world's top 5 nano-patterning scholar in the Scholar Subject Search of Google.
Accordingly, Yeungnam University expects to be able to lead fusion researches for diverse fields such as mechanics, electronics, physics, chemistry, bio-engineering and bio-chemicals at the cutting-edge NT sectors, and in particular the nano-patterning field through its partnership with IIT. Through this, it is expected that it will have considerable ripple effects for academic research and for the industry.
