India & Auckland
India’s New Education Policy 2020 and Academia partnership essential in preparing students for future jobs were two of the highlights of the QS India Summit 2024 that the University of Auckland sponsored second year in a row. Attended by some of the leading global universities in the world, the summit focussed on collaboration and partnership in India.
University of Auckland’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dawn Freshwater moderated a panel on Interdisciplinary research and education collaboration best practices. Dr Gayle Morris, University’s Director for Teaching and Learning, and Associate Professor Paul Denny held a workshop on International curriculum design sharing a conceptual framework to support interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary curriculum design for educational experiences that respond to emergent areas. University’s new Masters in Artificial Intelligence was provided as a case study through which to illustrate the work in practice.
It was also the occasion for the University to sign two important MoUs with UPES and Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) that will enable the TNE agreements and joint degree programmes with these esteemed universities in India.
The University’s International Director, Martin Hookham-Simms, participated in the NZ-India Connect programme to visit the Ministry of Education in Karnataka, the GIFT city in Ahmedabad, and the New Zealand Centre at IIT Delhi. In an endeavour to build research partnerships in India, Martin, along with Prof Partha Roop met with the Research Director of Google India, Manish Gupta, to discuss the common interest in solving healthcare challenges in India and New Zealand using digital health.
The New Zealand Centre at IIT Delhi
The New Zealand universities were at the Centre in February 2024 to discuss the future of the projects undertaken at the Centre. The projects undertaken at the first round of the Centre’s Seed Fund programme have had a huge success with external funding. There has been interest in these projects being guided by industry needs and funding.
Under the Centre’s fellowship programme, NZ academics are visiting IIT Delhi while IIT Delhi academics are on NZ university campuses to foster academic relationships, deliver guest lectures and develop joint-research projects. Prof Clemency Montelle from Canterbury was at IIT Delhi as the Centre fellow to explore the convergence of Indian Knowledge Systems and contemporary public systems and develop a valuable framework. A research workshop, meetings with leaders in the academic community, PhD student interactions, and a public lecture were some of the activities she undertook during her two-week visit.
One of the two visiting fellows from IIT Delhi, Prof Sanjiva Prasad visited Auckland’s Engineering faculty in March to explore options for formalisation of a novel protocol developed by Google called ‘bittide’. Prof Prasad collaborated with one of Prof Partha Roop’s PhD student, Logan Kenwright, to develop a formal model and execution semantics, which will lead to novel applications that can leverage this new protocol. Google has invited for this project to be submitted for funding.
Prof Prasad also delivered a joint seminar to IEEE Computer Society and the ECSE department.
A meeting was also held with Google research and the initial ideas of the project was discussed with Google. This has been well received and he was invited to submit a research proposal, which has been submitted for funding to Google.
The University of Auckland is receiving the IIT Delhi Deans for Research and International in April. Auckland’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Strategic Engagement), Dr Erik Lithander, who also chairs the Centre’s Advisory Board will host the delegation and other North Island universities, along with members of the India New Zealand Business Council, sector association directors and representatives of Education New Zealand, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Primary Industry.
The Centre aims to foster academic collaborations between the two countries and working towards research projects that contribute to the research interest of the industries and the two nations.
Courtesy: University of Auckland
