DEHRADUN: Celebrating the 175th year of its foundation, the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT-R), on Tuesday announced a strategic collaboration with Deloitte, a leader in artificial intelligence to deliver rigorous, immersive programs in AI and machine learning (ML) that are designed to build the next generation workforce.
While highlighting the importance of the collaboration with Deloitte, Professor Ajit K Chaturvedi, director, IIT Roorkee said, “The coming together of IIT Roorkee and Deloitte will create new opportunities for both of us. In fact, this partnership has the potential to strengthen the AI roadmap of India.”
The partnership aims to revolutionize the industry-academia relationship that will help in bridging the talent gap and nurture future leaders with a high level of AI proficiency.
Under the partnership, Deloitte will offer fellowships and a work-study program for IIT Roorkee students to work on AI and Advanced Analytics.
This collaboration will play a pivotal role in providing technical manpower and know-how to students on new-age tools and creating a roadmap for the future of AI.
IIT Roorkee’s collaboration with Deloitte is in sync with the ‘Digital India’ mission of the government of India, which aims at boosting the AI-enabled technologies in every sector including governance, banking, education and health along with many other fields of the daily life of the common public.
The collaboration will focus on a prioritized set of initiatives in the AI space by way of designing and delivering AI and machine learning certification courses to educate Deloitte employees.
The partnership will also promote AI fluency for aspiring students and the Indian community at large with online learning courses thus enabling digital empowerment of citizens and talent pools.
“Deloitte is committed to developing new talent with the right skill sets to deliver on the benefits of AI for business and all of society,” said Jason Girzadas, Managing Principal, Businesses, Global and Strategic Services, Deloitte.
“As we look to facilitate our clients’ journeys to becoming AI-fueled organizations, the collaboration with IIT Roorkee will educate future business leaders, instilling AI proficiency designed to broaden the pool of business-ready, AI talent,” added Girzadas.
Furthermore, IIT Roorkee has established Mehta Family School for Data Science and Machine Learning which offers MTech in Data Science and MTech in Artificial Intelligence.
It also offers a PhD program and it will begin offering a full-fledged BTech in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence degree program from the Autumn 2022 semester.
In addition, the School will offer minor specialization in the area of data science and artificial intelligence to all the students of the institute.
Professor Manish Shrikhande, dean of SRIC – IIT Roorkee said, “IIT Roorkee focuses on being at the forefront of providing technical support to national and international projects related to AI and ML. Its other objectives include supporting the Make-in-India and Atma-Nirbhar Bharat initiatives of the Indian Government by seeding entrepreneurship and startups related to Artificial Intelligence and creating resource centres for information and knowledge sharing.”