IIT Kanpur signs with Univeristy of Sains Malasia, Malaysia

A memorandum of understanding was signed today by Prof. Sanjay G Dhande, Director, IIT Kanpur and Prof. Tan Sri Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, Vice Chancellor, Universiti Sains Malasia (USM), Malaysia facilitating the era of participation of IIT Kanpur in research, consultancy and training at the proposed Center of Engineering Excellence, Penang, Malaysia. The signing of the MoU was done in the honorable presence of Prof. M Anandakrishnan, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Kanpur and Mr. Hamadan Abdul Majeed, Senior Vice President, Khazanah, Malaysia and Mr. S Gopalan, Vice President, Khazanah, Malaysia. Khazanah, Malaysia is an investment arm of the Government of Malaysia and is proposing to fund the setting up and running of the Center of Engineering Excellence, Penang, Malaysia.

The Deans and other officials of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur were also present during the above meeting during which the memorandum of understanding was signed today.

Later the representatives of the Universiti Sains Malasia (USM), Malaysia and Khazanah, Malaysia met all the Heads of the department of IIT Kanpur to familiarize themselves with the activities and academic programmes of IIT Kanpur.

A detailed note in respect of the concept of Center of Engineering Excellence and the respective roles of the participating Institutions is enclosed for your perusal and reference.

Sanjeev S Kashalkar
Registrar

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY KANPUR
Subject: Participation of IIT Kanpur in research, consultancy, and training at the proposed Center of Engineering Excellence, Penang, Malaysia

The Government of Malaysia plans to create a Center of Engineering Excellence at Penang with Universiti Sains Malasia (USM) and IIT Kanpur as partners. {Other organizations such as the Stanford Research Institute may join the Center at a later date.} The Malaysian government (via its unit called Khazanah) will provide initial funding for infrastructure such as the building as well shared services including equipment and software. The goal of the Center is to provide consultancy services to the multinational companies in the Penang area. In addition, the center will organize short term courses and training programs for the engineers of the local industry.

Penang is home to most electronics and computer companies including Motorola, AMD, IBM, Intel and many others. Apart from electronics, thrust areas of collaboration will include manufacturing, display technology, materials, and indeed, the full spectrum of engineering and science.

Coordination of activities related to the creation of the Center is being arranged by Professors Ashok Mittal (convener), A.K. Chaturvedi, Deepak Gupta, and Sanjay Mittal. The MOU signing ceremony is planned for 22nd August 2009, here on the campus.

At IIT Kanpur, we have spoken of borderless academics and have started to encourage movement of students as well as academic content from and to the Institute. The opportunity provided by the invitation from Malaysia will take us towards borderless (industrial) research and similar models may emerge with other countries as well.

Notes
i. Khazanah is the investment arm of the Government of Malaysia.

ii. The funding (or a part of it) for creation of the Center would be via Khazanah; this office will also facilitate collaboration with the industry and monitor the impact of such a Center in the midst of an industrial area.

iii. The Malaysian Government is acutely aware of the limitations of its industry, non- availability of trained manpower, and the overall economic downturn world-wide (see enclosed report of Dr Rasiah on page 5)

iv. The Penang area of Malaysia is highly industrialized with very reputed multi-national companies setting up a manufacturing base here for over three decades. Penang is often compared with Bangalore in India and Silicon Valley in US, though, with over 2500 companies around, its strength is in hardware.

v. The Government of Malaysia would like its industry to go up the value chain from pure manufacturing with design, analysis, and product development preceding the manufacturing step.

vi. A 3-member delegation from Malaysia comprising Mr Abdul Hamdan, Senior Vice President, Khazanah Research and Investment Strategy, Mr. K. Gopalan, Vice President, Khazanah Research and Investment Strategy, and Dr Rajah Rasiah, Professor of Technology and Innovation Policy, University of Malaya visited us on 27th January 2009.

vii. The coordination committee from our side visited Penang in June 2009 for a first-hand experience of the quality and diversity of the local industry.

About the Center of Engineering Excellence
The Center is visualized as a stand-alone entity, a Foundation (or a Society) registered as Company with Limited Guarantee in Penang, Malaysia. The Center will have equal participation from IIT Kanpur and USM, Malaysia. It will be led by an Executive Board that has membership from IIT Kanpur, USM Malaysia as well as the local industry. The Chair of the Board will alternate between IIT Kanpur and USM, with the incumbent enjoying tenure of two years.

Khazanah will provide financial support for the building followed by shared services that include state-of-the-art equipment, instruments and software. These are intended to assist the faculty with providing consultancy services to the local industry. It is expected that the facilities will be available to our faculty for its own research on payment of a nominal charge. Regular staff needed to maintain and run the Center would originate from Malaysia, with the graduates of USM being greatly involved in projects. The facilities planned for the Center are quite extensive and include (to name a few):

Rapid prototyping machine
Ultrasonic NDT system
Network analyzer and accessories
Focused ion beam
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
Scanning Squid microscopy
Time of flight secondary mass spectroscopy
RFID laboratory
Touch/Haptics LCD panels contact simulation and characterization
Universal 3D packaging test system
Vision technology {The list is truly very long.}

The industry in Penang specializes in electronics, computer hardware, instrumentation, and display technologies and all related manufacturing processes. Projects those are likely to emerge after discussions would be quite specific to these areas and certainly time-bound. Khazanah has classified thrust areas as (a) design and validation, (b) testing and compliance testing, (c) materials, packaging, reliability and failure analysis, and (d) manufacturing and fabrication. Keywords in these domains that we will recognize are:

Thermal and stress management
VLSI design
Chipset architecture
Surface engineering
Material characterization and nanomaterials
Ceramic materials in electronics
Failure and reliability analysis Packaging technology and 3D modeling RF and microwaves
Synthesis algorithms and software
Decision science {Once again, the list is long.}

Short term courses suggested are:
design principles product development optical imaging automation metrology
lasers and optoelectronics materials science semiconductors device physics
modeling and characterization microelectronics
RF and Microwaves
Electronic component packaging
lean manufacturing and supply chain principles software engineering

Proposal for a CENTRE OF ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE

Prepared by Dr Rajah Rasiah Professor of Technology and Innovation Policy Faculty of Economics and Administration University of Malaya Kaula Lampur Malaysia

Penang is host to a large agglomeration of international electronics companies, many of whom have been operating here since 1972. As a world leader in manufacturing technology, it has relied heavily on multinationals to provide technological leadership, whereas local companies have focused largely on being vendors. This has resulted in restricted technological growth, driven primarily by the needs of the companies concerned. The general absence of independent or contracted research activity has impeded industrial progress and seen limited qualitative improvements in the manufacturing environment.

Penang stands at the crossroads. While through the last 35 years of industrialization, it has built up an impressive suite of companies, the opportunities to move up the value chain through greater creative and innovative engineering inputs are abound. Nestled between the industrial giants, India and China (Taiwan), Penang offers that unique multi-cultural opportunity for creative individuals and organizations to interact and tap into the many research and design projects and options which are presented by these companies. Given the pace of change, many of these translate into pro-active proposals for innovation and intellectual property.

The creation of this Centre is a committed effort on the part of Malaysia to provide an impetus for the building the knowledge hub/nexus. With the commitment of both Multinational Corporations and Malaysian companies to move in this direction, Khazanah Nasional Bhd. hopes to use this Centre as a bridge to forge closer and more meaningful technology learning and development experiences for the region. It is seen as an opportunity for leading institutions such as IIT and Hsinchu Science Park to extend their learning experience into the companies operating here in Penang, through joint research projects, emplacement of academics and post graduate students and other forms of collaboration which could yield significant creation and dissemination of knowledge.

A recent dialogue with industry leaders in Penang revealed this desire on the part of companies to move up the value chain. Their willingness to collaborate reflects the new inertia to create the learning culture within their organizations and indeed for Penang as a whole. The time is thus right to move forward with this initiative.

It is critical that actions be taken to create this learning and technology enabling environment, both from the standpoint of international competitiveness as well as nurturing and nourishing Human Capital potential. The strategy needs to be seen as a series of positive steps to engage partners who can accelerate this process and at the same time prepare the right environment for technology/knowledge-base to flourish.

Towards this end, engagement with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), will bring about a meaningful partnership in the spirit of Win-Win. While Malaysian technology content will be greatly enhanced by the IIT experience in research, education and consultation, the Institution stands to gain from the overseas exposure, real-life industry projects and the multi cultural diversity that will be brought through other leading institutions from Taiwan and other locations in the region.

The objectives of the Centre of Engineering Technology are
1. to provide fertile ground for the development of Human Capital through students, academia and interaction with industry.
2. to develop a supportive framework for the development of incremental technologies, for the benefit of all,
3. to tap into the resource base of all participants for the growth, development and dissemination of knowledge and technology.
4. to provide avenues for participants of this Centre to obtain overseas exposure through exchange programs.
5. to provide a platform for developing greater mutual understanding and a forum for meaningful sharing of resources and knowledge.

The fact that both India as well as Taiwan are within a 4 hour flight radius from Penang and that the element of cultural affinity to both regions is very strong, makes Penang an ideal centre for this form of collaboration. This coupled with the good infrastructure, strong presence of technology-based companies and the desire to move up the value chain makes this a meaningful and viable proposition.

We hope to obtain an agreement in principle from IIT to move ahead and explore modes of collaboration which will further the exalted objectives that it can serve. At the same time, we recognize the need for the respective governments to be involved given that both our organizations are in effect, Government driven, and serve the larger agenda of nation building and international cooperation.

Sphere: Related Content

Related Websites

• Surf Skate Expo Experiences 20th Year in Orlando The Surf Expo is an annual surf and skate trade show that is put together every year at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. This is the most popular surf and skate trade show for the last twenty years, and the most recent year was absolutely no exception......
• Internet Advertising in Orlando & Getting on Page #1 Internet advertising in Orlando means getting on page #1 of major Internet Search Engines. This is what Bright Internet Marketing does in Orlando & Central Florida.  We can help you achieve many top page advertising and marketing listing for your products, goods and services. Bright Internet Marketing specializes in local market research, search engine optimization......
• AIG Has Already Used 3/4 of Its $123 Billion Bailout Loan Ouch. Does anything more need to be said other than Ouch? The troubled insurance giant American International Group already has consumed three-quarters of a federal $123 billion rescue loan, a little more than a month after the government stepped in to save the company from bankruptcy. AIG has borrowed $90.3......
• Run A Profitable Google Adwords Pay Per Click Campaign Google and Yahoo-Overture management over 90% of the PPC market and as such you must seriously consider using them if you need the maximum possible publicity to targeted internet visitors through PPC advertising . Join the Google Adwords program is free however they require a $5 USD deposit earlier than......
• Affymetrix (AFFX) - Competition leaves Affymetrix in Despairing Wake Affymetrix specializes in genetics offering the best products to better understand and deliver correct results. However, despite the technology Affymetrix uses, on Wednesday, January 13th; an analyst warned Affymetrix that their equipment and products may become obsolete. This is due to competing rivals with newer ideas, and more efficient products......