As the demand for niche technology areas is increasing, tech-hunting CIOs are giving a serious thought of going back to school—not for extra credits, but for the tools to make their lives easier. Within India there are hundreds of colleges and universities, which could offer access to research for the tech hungry corporate world.

University research has traditionally been more about theoretical rather than applied science. But an accelerating rate of practical innovation on campus—particularly in IT—means that CIOs willing to invest their time would find the effort worthwhile. On occasion, the payoff would be a new product or technology suitable for internal use. But even if they don’t find something to run on their servers or connect to their networks, CIOs would almost always glean greater knowledge of what technology is coming down the pipe. And that information can be valuable.

"It makes sense to catch them young and mould them to one’s needs. Today there is a big gap between what the industry needs and what institutes provide them with. The graduates who come out of colleges are not really industry ready. And if only we would know how to mould them according to the industry needs then it would give us a competitive advantage," says S N Murthy, President and COO at Hyderabad based Intoto Software, an embedded solutions developer.

Much of today’s information technology—everything from optical fiber to the Internet—originated in academic research.

These innovations traditionally go through a lengthy commercialization process, however, where companies take the concept pioneered at a university and turn it into a viable product or service—and it can take years. But this situation is beginning to change as a number of core technology companies are seriously involved with academic institutions.

During the last decade a confluence of circumstances, including a decrease in government research funding, the industry’s increasing need for innovation and a greater percentage of applied research in the universities has pushed academic and commercial interests closer together.

To bridge the divide between industry and the academics, the Government of AP has set up the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) at Hyderabad. It is an autonomous, self-supporting institution started in 1998 with seed support from the Government of AP. A major goal of IIIT is to impart a uniquely broad and interdisciplinary IT education of the highest academic quality. This is achieved through an integrated curriculum that consists of a diverse set of IT courses, interdisciplinary IT research projects, day-to-day interaction with industry, preparation in entrepreneurship and personality development courses.

"It is evident from the trends over the recent years that there are more industry players operating in areas such as GIS and VLSI design. With initiatives of the Central Government already taken, the trained manpower in the niche areas is bound to increase.

There are also examples of Industry-Institute initiatives, which will meet the challenge of talent needs. But the point to note is, in quantitative terms, the suggested fields may not be requiring greater number of engineers in contrast to the fields of application software or ITeS. For that matter today any technological field will require more quality-based inputs rather than quantity. "This phenomenon will be more pronounced in the future," explained Anne Dayakar, General Manager, HR at QualCore Logic Ltd, another Hyderabad based company which is into the designing of semiconductor solutions.

To facilitate school-business relationships, most universities have industry liaison groups whose task is to keep corporations involved in on-campus research. Industry liaison programs use newsletters, conferences, and site visits to provide companies with a broader look at the research conducted across a university and to give members a chance to rub elbows with professors.

At Hyderabad’s IIIT, major national and international IT companies like IBM, Signal Tree, Motorola, Oracle and Satyam are involved in the institution’s academic program through their corporate schools on the campus. "IBM School of Enterprise Wide Computing", "Signal Tree School of Excellence in Software Development Methodologies", "Oracle School of Advance Software Technology", "Satyam School of Applied Information Systems" and "Motorola School of Communication Technology" are functioning on this campus. Needless to say that all this effort hints towards an acute need of the corporate world to get industry ready graduates.

"We have not partnered with IIIT instead Intoto has a sister concern which is into training programs for specialization in embedded systems and networking training courses, we work very closely with them. Some of our engineers visit as external faculty imparting real hands-on training. This way we are trying to bridge what the institutions and universities have left for us," Murthy added.

In the quest for new technology, companies work with schools in three ways: directly funding research; licensing a research-quality technology directly from the school and funding graduate students or professors to start their own companies. "Everything is driven by market demands. Students enroll themselves in courses because of the job/career opportunities it provides. Some areas like VLSI, etc. need very expensive tools for training and thus restrict number of institutes or students," added Murthy.

Technology license
The cheapest way to actively benefit from university research is to license a promising technology and make it commercially viable. This approach, however, also takes the most internal effort, since a license is simply permission to use or commercialize a research-grade application and usually requires significant reengineering to make it enterprise-worthy.

"There is an unpopular belief that today’s four-year engineering course can be more effectively covered in a two year curriculum. If this belief could be popularized, there is room for designing more practice-oriented courses within the overall scheduled course tenure. This however calls for more active interaction between the industry and academia at the policy-making levels. The future of technology lies in our innovative potential. This cannot be achieved purely by theoretical inputs rendered at college," Dayakar asserted.

During the past few years, a number of universities in India have made a concerted effort to align themselves more closely with the industry. "My belief is that the science colleges that will succeed in this century are those that learn to interact with a nonacademic world," claims Murthy. "It is important for generating an inflow of new questions and ideas and providing a link between our undergraduate and graduate students and the outside world where most will find careers," he added.

Edging benefits
Dayakar also maintains that the need for a solid relationship with universities has never been stronger. "But from a CIOs perspective we are not looking out at say five years for technology. We want to implement things that are up to speed. I don’t think many CIOs are in the R&D game. We want to help the business today," he added. Although QualCore is working closely with Vasavi College of Engineering at Hyderabad, Dayakar added that the biggest benefit is having an advantage when it comes to hiring former students and generally staying educated on emerging technology.

CIOs are always interested in what is coming down the pipe. And by keeping themselves up-to-date with the research taking place in universities helps CIOs keep their company on the leading edge.

Zia Askari
CNS