DU signs MoU with 5 companies for industry oriented courses

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June 5, 2009

After collaborating with Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) in the past for short-term professional courses, < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Delhi University's Campus of Open Learning (COL) has signed separate MoUs with five companies to start new professional and industry-oriented courses. The initiative was taken to 'fill the skill gap' between college education and industry needs. The MoU were signed between representatives of respective companies and the University registrar, in the presence of top DU officials, including vice-chancellor Deepak Pental, COL director Savita Datta and Students' Welfare dean S K Vij. 'We are very serious about this because the industry tells us that thousands of jobs go waste because of lack of properly trained and skilled workforce,' said Professor Pental, while interacting with industry representatives. He stressed on University's desire to ensure that students get the required skills for the market through the new courses.

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'The idea is not only to sign MoU but to work on the abilities of our students,' he said. He also mentioned DU's efforts in this regard, 'Our new SOL building will come up in a year or two and that will have skill development facilities.' Vij also appealed to the students of regular colleges to take up these courses. The five MoUs have been signed with Centum Learning for a course in telecom sales and service, HCL Infosystems for a course in IT and web designing, Bird Academy for courses in travel and tourism, Masscomedia for mass communication and RK Films for radio jockeying and broadcasting.

Proposals for 2,046 new colleges received at

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June 5, 2009

Universities from across the state of Maharashtra have proposed to the higher education department to start 2,046 new colleges across the state. 'We have submitted these proposals to the government for consideration,' said R. V. Kirdak, director of higher education, government of Maharashtra. But all the proposals are not likely to be sanctioned. Each division under a particular faculty in a college can have 120 seats.

This year around 11,84,000 students from Maharashtra appeared for HSC, of which 2,64,063 have taken the exams from the Mumbai division. 'Final decision will be taken by the government as per the need and demand,' added Kirdak. Under Mumbai University, proposals for setting up new colleges as well as additional divisions for 2009-10 add up to 28,254 seats. 145 proposals for new colleges have been made, amounting to 17,371 seats.

Students ecouraged to consider career in IT sector

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June 5, 2009

Canadian Information and Communications Technology (ICT) players have formulated an encouragement program that pursues high school students to buck the recession and consider careers in IT sector. The companies hope to avoid shortage of skilled workforce that could impact the tech sector and negatively affect the Canadian economy. In < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Ottawa, tech mentors from IBM Canada Ltd., Macadamian Technologies Inc., and Nortel (News – Alert) have worked with the first crop of 48 students in a high school pilot program. They aim to double their attendance next year and expand it to other cities as well. OCRI has partnered in a pilot program called 'The Ottawa High School Technology Program' and delivered seven experts from three companies to tutor high school student participants and work with them in hands-on labs at industry sites and in their classrooms and share expert computer skills.

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OCRI is the Ottawa's economic development agency and is the rallying point to bring business, education, research and talent together to create the winning economic conditions that allow Ottawa's knowledge-based companies to thrive locally and compete globally. This program was created to address the declining enrollment in post-secondary technology courses, to inspire students to pursue ICT careers before their senior year courses are locked in and to keep the city of Ottawa as a technology leader. After implementing a lot of initiative programs for high school students it became clear that the programs with the greatest impact on the students were the ones that allowed them to explore leading edge technology under the mentorship of industry experts. And this kind of technological interaction with professionals will only help students thrive in college and university technology courses instead of hitting a wall for lack of these skills. Recent surveys have indicated that negative perceptions of the tech sector following the bubble burst of 2002 and students disinterest in IT programs in Universities across Canada have the potential to make a situation where more than 90,000 jobs in the IT sector had to be filled in the next two to four years and if they remain unfilled it might affect the Canadian economy to a tune of $10.8 billion.

Mayawati’s scholarship scheme to benefit more girls

Policy Matters

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June 5, 2009

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Friday decided to include married girls in a scholarship scheme for female students from poor families. A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the state cabinet here, an official spokesman told sources. The scheme provides for disbursement of INR 15,000 to girls studying in class 11 and INR10,000 to those in class 12. They also receive a bicycle from the government. So far the benefit was available only to unmarried girl students from below-poverty line families.

The cabinet also decided to extend the ambit of a scheme aimed at discouraging female infanticide. 'While an ex-gratia amount of INR 20,000 was so far payable only to the parents of a newborn girl child only in families bearing the BPL card, the facility would now be available also to other poor people categorised as holders of the Antyodaya card,' said the spokesman. He said, 'The decision would increase the number of beneficiaries by 30 %.'

Soon a policy to tackle racial discrimination abroad

Policy Matters

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June 5, 2009

The central government would soon formulate a policy to deal with racial discrimination against Indians abroad, told Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur on Saturday. Arriving in her hometown Patiala for the first time after being inducted in the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Preneet Kaur expressed concern at the plight of students from India who have been facing racist attacks in Australia for about a month now.

She said, 'We have taken up the matter at various levels with the Australian government. Even the prime minister has spoken to his Australian counterpart. We want that the dignity of Indians is maintained in other countries.' There have been nearly a dozen attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and other places in Australia in recent weeks, leading to protests there by Indian students. The families of students studying there have also expressed concern. Nearly half of the 90,000-odd Indian students studying in various educational institutions in Australia are from Punjab alone. The education immigration business from India is said to be worth Rs.100 billion (INR10,000 crore).

Indian Music Industry urges young students to follow their Dreams

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June 5, 2009

Dr. Palash Sen, lead vocalist of Euphoria and along with Saurabh Saxena, Director of Mexus Education launched 'Follow Your Dreams' a commemorative compilation album in support of the 'I Pledge to Stop Student Suicides' movement. This album comprises of nine songs, by some of the biggest contemporary Indian artists like Euphoria, Shankar Ehsaan Loy, Kailash Kher amongst others. While launching the 'Follow Your Dreams' album Dr. Palash Sen, Lead Vocalist, Euphoria said, 'Through the 'I Pledge to Stop Student Suicides' initiative, we want to help all those who have a dream, but don't have a hand to guide them. I believe life is a blessing and it should not be wasted or given up easily. I believe students are the architects of India's future and they need to be cared about. This album is meant to inspire students and create awareness amongst everyone who plays an important part in shaping a young life during these formative years.'

Speaking at the launch, Saurabh Saxena, Director, Mexus Education, said, 'The moment we came to know about this initiative, we knew we had to be a part of it. We have always advocated de-stressing education and incorporating new methods of learning into our system which will help in identifying the student's areas of interest and talent. Through this album, we wish to share a message of love, hope, positive outlook towards life while motivating the students to never give up and follow their dreams. It is a very noble initiative and we at Mexus Education are glad that we have tried to do our bit for the students.' 'Follow Your Dreams' would be distributed pan India through Mexus Education's existing network of around 1200 schools to students, parents and teachers and will also be made available as a free download on www.iken.in. 1000 limited edition CD's will be available for free at Iken stores across the country. The artists supporting the cause will also distribute the album at their concerts and public appearances.

CMU to release updated version of Animated Software programme

Corporate Updates

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June 5, 2009

An updated version of popular animation-based software program 'Alice,' by Carnegie Mellon University, is set for release. It was developed by the late 'last lecture' professor Randy Pausch to teach computer programming. Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor and pioneer of virtual reality research, was involved with the Alice software project. He died at age 47 of pancreatic cancer last July, 10 months after giving his 'last lecture' about facing death that became an Internet sensation and spawned his best-selling book, The Last Lecture. Alice 3, expected to debut later this week, according to university officials, is designed to teach programming using a 'drag and drop' interface to create 3D animations. The latest version, which will be available free of charge at www.alice.org, also lets advanced users create programs in the Java programming language.

Users can select hundreds of character objects and scenes from the popular video game 'The Sims' to make and control virtual worlds. Hundreds of colleges and numerous middle and high schools use Alice software to teach programming, according to Carnegie Mellon. The program is designed to serve as an introductory programming course for school-aged children, and the web site, www.aliceprogramming.net, has instructor's materials that supplement the Alice 3 textbook. Pausch saw an early version of Alice 3 shortly before his death. Educators who encounter debugging or troubleshooting problems with the new Alice 3 program can visit aliceprogramming.net and read tips on common issues. The site shows the minimum hardware and software specifications needed to use Alice 3 on classroom computers, what to do when Alice characters' colors won't change, and how to play audio files in the program.

Students from IIT-M to design Bio-Research Centre in Jaipur

Higher Education

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June 5, 2009

Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) students are to design a Hi-End Laboratory and a Bio-Reactor for sewerage treatment for the Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC). The laboratory will extend a great benefit to world class research in microbiology and various applications of the treated water in agriculture and industrial uses. The laboratory would improve the quality of waste water and make it re-useable. It will also provide Research & Development (R&D) facility to environmental engineering students.

The bio-reactor is based on the Activated Sludge Process (ASP). It would support in reducing contaminants, pollutants and microbes in sewerage water. Project Incharge Hemant Kumar Sharma claims that this is the first-of-its-kind laboratory in the country by any civic body. Sharma briefed that the treatment would follow the process of reverse osmosis and then the water could be used for industrial and irrigation use. The new technology would allow a reduction in bio-chemical oxygen demand (BoD) and chemical oxygen demand (CoD) and thus make the water potable.

Brian League launches an e-Learning tool

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June 5, 2009

Brain League has launched Value intellectual property rights (IPR), an e-Learning tool that helps knowledge-driven organisations in sensitising their entire employee force on various aspects of IP. < ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Brain League is an IP service company incubated out of the N S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. The company has tied up with Edutech, a provider of enterprise-wide knowledge solutions, to offer Value IPR. The tool can deliver the IPR e-Learning modules to as many people within the organisation as required. To develop and utilise IP for optimal commercial benefit, companies have to build an IP culture and hygiene among employees. Becoming IP conscious involves several approaches. Employees should become conscious about the IPR potential in what they are doing. This involves applying for a patent at an early stage of development. Simultaneously, employees should be aware when they are using other people's IP, so that royalty is paid and patent infringement does not become an issue later.

Qatar residents receive Top IT honour

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June 5, 2009

Amongst a list of a list of the 10 most outstanding Information Technology managers in the region in 2009, two Qatar residents have been named for a second consecutive year. Mohamed Javeed, Director, Qatar University's Information Technology Services and GV Rao, General Manager, United Development Company's ICT have been honoured by Arabian Computer News (ACN). A range of criterion were fulfilled by the two including the overall impact the achievers had on the regional IT community, as well as taking into account their experience with their organisations.

The top 10 IT managers have been credited with pursuing innovation, creating new means of working where possible and finding better ways of adapting the old technology. Some have worked hard to bring the technology community closer together; others have taken age-old institutions and given them new life.

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