The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Now a finishing school in BT

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 24, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Now a finishing school in BT

Staff Reporter

Karnataka will be the first State to have such a course by November end

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Launch of ventures: (From left) H.A. Ranganath, Vice-Chancellor, Bangalore University; M.N. Vidyashankar, Secretary, IT & BT; G. Padmanabhan, Prof. Emeritus, IISc. and H.P. Kincha, Vice-Chancellor, VTU, Belgaum, at the national symposium in Bangalore on Tuesday.

BANGALORE: Karnataka is all set to become the first to have a finishing school in biotechnology. The project, now in its final stages, will be launched by November end this year, and will guarantee jobs to all its students, Secretary, Information Technology and Biotechnology M.N. Vidyashankar announced here on Tuesday.

At a national symposium on “Innovations in Biotechnology: Entrepreneurial Opportunities and IPR”, jointly organised by the Bangalore University Biotechnology department and the BT department of the Sir M. Visvesvaraya Institute of Technology, Mr. Vidyashankar said the State had already completed several talks with the biotech industry and the academia on the finishing school.

The State, he informed, has also set up three vision groups for information technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology. The IT group is headed by Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy and the BT group is chaired by Biocon chief Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, while the group on nanotechnology has eminent scientist C.N.R. Rao as its head. A Stem Cell Research Institute in the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) campus is also on the cards. This project will be partly funded by the State and Central Governments, and will be ready in the next four months, according to the Mr. Vidyashankar.

At the Bangalore Nano, another first of its kind event to be organised in the city on December 6 and 7, the State will announce the launch of a “Bangalore Nano Park” with an investment of about Rs. 100 crore, funded partly by the State and Centre. This park, Mr. Vidyashankar said, will focus on applications-oriented research and recruit about 160 researchers.

He also spoke about an Incubation Centre to be set up at the Bio Park in Electronic City in the next 18 months, and the first IT finishing school to be established in Mysore in June. Another IT school, set up with a foreign varsity, will begin admitting students from October end; its first batch will begin in December. On Bangalore’s growing stature, Mr. Vidyashankar said the city hosted more than 200 of the 300 biotech companies in the country, and over 1,900 information technology firms.

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