At least seven out of the 20 IIITs (International Institute of Information Technology) will be established in the country in the next academic year. All the institutes will come up in public-private partnership mode.
“Both the Union Cabinet and Planning Commission have okayed the proposal to set up the institutes on the lines of the one in Hyderabad. The Ministry of Human Resources Development will bear 50 per cent of the costs to set up the institutes in various States. The respective States will contribute 35 per cent and the remaining would come from the private players,” Prof Rajeev Sangal, Director of IIIT (Hyderabad), said.
The remaining institutes too would come up in the next two-three years.
Addressing a press conference here on Saturday after the 11th convocation of the institute, he said the States would also provide the land required for the institutes. One of the seven institutes would come up in Andhra Pradesh.
IIIT (Hyderabad) will mentor these institutes as and when they are established.
He said the institute produced 160 research publications and seven PhD students received fellowships from TCS (four) and Google, IBM Research and Microsoft (one each).
Future of IT
Prof Raj Reddy, Chairman of IIIT (H), said that the future for information technology industry was bright.
“The first 50 years marked growth and turbulence. The next 50 years promise steady growth and demand. You see great demand for IT devices. They have applications for all walks of life,” he said.
India was facing a serious competition from other countries in the outsourcing sphere.
“We need to work on other opportunities to sustain our leadership,” he said.