On Nov. 16, MIT President Susan Hockfield led a delegation on a weeklong trip to India, highlighting MIT's history with India and the potential for future collaborations.
During the past few years, faculty and student interest in India has grown significantly, and there are currently a dozen formal collaborations between MIT and India. There are now 229 Indian students at the Institute, and more than 40 faculty members have collaborations with colleagues in India.
Hockfield, who is the first sitting MIT president to go to India, will visit New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. In New Delhi, she will lead the symposium, "India and MIT: A Conversation About the Future," at which several MIT faculty members will speak. She will also deliver a public lecture on "Universities and the Global Knowledge Economy" to the Confederation of Indian Industries in Mumbai.
While in Bangalore, Hockfield will visit the leaders of John F. Welch Technology Centre, Infosys, Wipro and Biocon. She also plans to meet with groups of alumni in India and with dignitaries from the Indian government, academia and industry.
MIT faculty accompanying Hockfield to India are Subra Suresh, dean of the School of Engineering; Charles Cooney, the Robert T. Haslam Professor of Chemical Engineering; Esther Duflo, the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development; Arvind, the Johnson Professor of Computer Science and Engineering; Steven Lerman, dean for graduate students; Ram Sasisekharan, professor of biological engineering and health sciences and technology; Martha Gray, co-director of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology; Philip Khoury, associate provost; O'Neil Outar, director of institutional initiatives; and Tuli Banerjee, director of the MIT-India Program.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on November 14, 2007 (download PDF).
