The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) has recently entered into a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to create an ecosystem for human resource development in High Performance Computing (HPC) and allied areas.
This partnership aims to drive sustainable development in HPC and related technologies by offering training programmes to enhance the teaching skills of master trainers in HPC and allied technologies. Under the joint initiative by C-DAC and AICTE, around 2,500 faculty members from about 1,000 engineering colleges across India will be trained through 50 faculty development programmes.
The C-DAC and AICTE will also collaborate on the development of quality improvement programmes for teachers from streams other than computer science to enhance their subject expertise in HPC and allied technologies. In addition, courses on SWAYAM will be offered on the Ministry of Education’s SWAYAM platform to reach out to students nationwide. C-DAC will deliver its developed HPC learning platforms to nominated institutes.
The MoA was signed by Prof. T. G. Sitharam, Chairman AICTE, and Col. Asheet Nath (Retd.), Executive Director, C-DAC Pune and Corporate Strategy, in the presence of Shri S. Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), and other officials of MeitY and the Department of Science and Technology (DST).
On this occasion, Shri S. Krishnan, Secretary, MeitY, mentioned that the HPC-aware workforce development activity under NSM will now reach a broader audience in engineering colleges nationwide. “This, in turn, will help in building HPC-related capability in the technical workforce, making them ready for the industry”, he added.
MeitY has also planned awareness programmes to introduce the nuances of high performance computing in about 1,000 colleges to reach 100,000 students. Further, to support the initiative, it has also proposed installing 50 PARAM Shavak, ‘ Supercomputing Solution in a Box’ by C-DAC—in AICTE-affiliated institutions.
Prof. T. G. Sitharam, Chairman of AICTE, said, “With the signing of this MoA between AICTE and C-DAC, we are taking a significant step towards creating a robust ecosystem for High-Performance Computing (HPC) education in India.” He also mentioned that this initiative aligns perfectly with the goals of the National Supercomputing Mission and the vision of NEP 2020, ensuring that our technical education system remains at the forefront of global advancements.
C-DAC has today emerged as a premier R&D organization in IT&E (Information Technologies and Electronics) in the country, strengthening national technological capabilities in the context of global developments in the field and responding to changes in market needs in selected foundation areas. It represents a unique facet of working closely with MeitY to realize the nation’s policy and pragmatic interventions and initiatives in Information Technology.
