IIT-Mumbai will be part of a consortium of world class academic institutions that have been selected to set up an applied sciences campus in Brooklyn, under an initiative to strengthen the city's global competitiveness in the field of science and engineering.
New York University was selected as the second winner of the city's 'Applied Sciences NYC Initiative', the first being Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, which are creating an engineering campus on Roosevelt Island.
Launching the initiative New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the "historic agreement" between the city and the consortium of the academic institutions and private technology companies would lead to the creation of the 'NYU Center For Urban Science and Progress' (CUSP) in Brooklyn.
The NYU-Polytechnic Institute of New York University led consortium includes Carnegie Mellon University, City University of New York, University of Toronto, University of Warwick, IIT Mumbai, as well as technology giants IBM and Cisco, and will grant academic degrees in engineering and sciences.
The centre would focus on research and development of technology to address critical challenges facing cities, including infrastructure, tech integration, energy efficiency, transportation congestion, public safety and public health.
{{/usCountry}}The centre would focus on research and development of technology to address critical challenges facing cities, including infrastructure, tech integration, energy efficiency, transportation congestion, public safety and public health.
{{/usCountry}}"Each of the academic partners of NYU and NYU-Poly – Carnegie Mellon, University of Warwick and IIT Mumbai – are known for their strong applied science and engineering programmes, and each has a solid track record of research commercialisation, as well as industry collaborations and partnerships," the NYC Economic Development Corporation said in a statement here today.
IBM and Cisco would each provide a million dollars a year in financial and in-kind support.
IIT Mumbai Director Devang Khakhar said the issues facing Mumbai would provide unique new insights and be a source of ideas for the work of the Center.
"The Centre presents a great new opportunity to address the challenges of megacities by the generation of new knowledge using New York City as its laboratory and by imparting education with a focus on the planning, building and managing megacities," Khakhar said in the statement.
"The work of the Centre will benefit New York City directly and will provide a template to address many issues of megacities.
"We look forward to contributing actively as a consortium member of the Centre through the participation of our faculty who specialize in the fields of engineering and science related to urban studies," Khakhar added.