The Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET) at the University of California, Berkeley has entered into a partnership with Sri Ramaswami Memorial University (SRM) to help establish new centers for innovation and entrepreneurship in India.
SRM wishes to embrace the study and practice of “technology-centric” innovation as championed by SCET in order to educate students on the latest innovation methods and techniques to help create a lively entrepreneurship ecosystem in the cities of Chennai and Amaravati.
“We aim to bring a confluence of international ideas, technological innovation, and social impact to the region. Thus creating an ecosystem of innovation for the entire cities of Amaravati and Chennai and building a second Bay Area”, says Dr. P. Sathyanarayanan, President of SRM University.
Faculty members are to be the backbone of this culture; SCET will provide support in the design and development of courses to bring the concepts of entrepreneurship and innovation to SRM. SCET will also facilitate SRM faculty visits to the US for capacity building.
“We are excited to embark on this new partnership to help develop a new worldwide center for innovation at SRM,” said Dr. Ikhlaq Sidhu, faculty director for the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology and professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering & Operations Research at UC Berkeley, “We look forward to welcoming SRM faculty and students here at Berkeley to share knowledge and approaches for developing entrepreneurial programs and culture.”
SRM is also partnering with Berkeley’s College of Engineering, Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation, and the Dado and Maria Banatao Center for Global Education and Outreach from Berkeley Engineering (GLOBE) to assist in developing the new centers of design innovation in Chennai and Amaravati and support the annual cohorts of visiting students to UC Berkeley.
“Technological innovations and engineering designs are ingredients that inspire young minds. Through this strategic partnership between Berkeley Engineering and SRM, we will focus on design and innovations to create an environment for advancing knowledge in students that will impact a diverse society,” said Dr. Shankar Sastry, Dean of Engineering at UC Berkeley.
The partnership will officially kickoff in Spring 2018 with SRM sending twenty students to Berkeley to participate in the Sutardja Center’s Startup Semester at Berkeley program.