Utkal to collaborate with top US universities

BHUBANESWAR: Utkal University, in collaboration with two top US universities, will set up specialist centres on both of its campuses to foster entrepreneurship and innovation among students.
The university will sign MoUs with University of California, Berkeley, and Northeastern University, Boston. Both universities will help Utkal in separate areas of research and development, as well as startup activities. “The MoUs will be signed once they are legally vetted. Besides the specialist centres, faculty and student-exchange programmes will be part of the collaboration,” Utkal vice-chancellor Soumendra Patnaik said.
“The centres will also help train unskilled and unemployed youths,” Patnaik added. Utkal will conduct faculty and student-exchange programmes besides setting up innovation and startup parks from its old and new campuses in Chandikhol. The programme will be funded by the Centre’s Rashtriya Uchhatar Siksha Abhiyan (RUSA) 2.0. Patnaik added, “Through the exchange programmes, students will be exposed to brand new cultures and experiences. This will give birth to new academic collaborations and partnerships.” Sources said Northwestern University would help Utkal in setting up the parks and taking care of the students’ training programmes. The University of California, Berkeley, will help the varsity with science and social science research and development and social impact assessment.
“The new campus in Chandikhol will be the hub of the project. Most development work as part of this collaboration will take place on the new campus,” the vice-chancellor said. Utkal University is the sole university from the state selected for the programme. Nine other universities selected from the country are Osmania University, Guru Nanak Dev University, Savitribai Phule University, Kurukshetra University, Alagappa University, Jadavpur University, Sri Venkateswara University, Andhra University and University of Jammu.