Bennett University in partnership with Researchers from University College, London & Brunel University, UK has been granted a funding by the prestigious Royal Academy of Engineering, UK Titled as ‘Making Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence skills mainstream in India to fulfill trilateral needs of entrepreneurship, Industry academia partnership and application-inspired Engineering Research’.
The vision of the project is to bring about large-scale adoption, training and skilling of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning technologies in Engineering institutions of India. With this India can brace itself for the next revolution in this niche technology area and can become next AI manpower supplier to the world.
The purpose of this project is:
1. To make cutting edge skill available to the wider community of academicians and researchers through a thoughtfully created network of 25 lead institutions across India. These 25 institutions will further connect with 10 more institutions for second level of engagement resulting in a network of 250 institutions. It will result in trained manpower of 2500 instructors which in turn can train 100000 students every year.
2. To initiate, sustain and nourish research groups in Artificial Intelligence. This will serve the dual purpose of increasing the research quotient in 2nd tier Indian institutions and porting 2500 faculty to do research in niche areas of AI.
3. To motivate the learner community for exploiting the potential of start-ups and innovations in this area and connecting them with the real-life problems that industry is trying to solve. Overall it will enhance the content, quality, capacity and collaboration of Indian Engineering education ecosystem.
It is known that Indian Engineering institutions lag behind in embracing latest research and curriculum in the areas where quality manpower is required for the skill-scare industry. Currently Machine Learning and data science is on top of the minds of all Industries looking for bright graduates.
This project over a two year period will train 2500 faculty of 250 institutions in India through 25 Lead institutions chosen from different geographic regions of the country. A research group will be started in lead institutions, which will be mentored to do short and long term research in the area of Machine Learning and Data Science.
Start-ups and industry involved in the Artificial Intelligence, such as NVIDIA, Amazon, VideoKen and many more are partnering in this project for providing application-oriented ideas and absorbing the trained graduates of these institutions.
This project has the potential to change the landscape of Artificial Intelligence Research in India. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of applications in this domain, the impact will percolate to all the Engineering departments of the institutions. Outcome of the project will be tangible in terms of its impact to Engineering community and general public. It will also help in strategic partnership between industry-academia apart from few spin-offs due to this initiative. The Super-computing infrastructure, strong faculty profile and leadership role being played by Bennett University will be key driving factor for the success of the initiative.
Dr. Deepak Garg, Principal Lead of the Project and head, Bennett Center for Research in AI said “We are embracing ourselves for a big role in this area by enabling the Higher education institutions through workshops, student projects, sabbaticals and internships. We are supporting the industry through our consultant network, Industry-Academia conclaves and corporate training opportunities.
Prof. Suneet Tuli, Dean, School of Engineering at Bennett University said “The Project is in line with our focus to undertake Industry oriented research with useful applications for society. Bennett University will be contributing in the ecosystem being developed by the Govt to enhance the use AI in all walks of life and increasing the quality of life for our fellow citizens.”
