IT RESEARCH ACADEMY

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IT RESEARCH ACADEMY

• Narendra Ahuja
• n-ahuja_at_illinois.edu
• Member and Coordinator
• ITRA Program Steering and Implementation Group
• Media Lab Asia, Department of Information
  Technology, GOI
• Donald Biggar Willet Professor
• Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Founding Director and Director International
• IIIT, Hyderabad

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ITRA

• A Government of India Program
• by
• Department of Information Technology
• Ministry pf Communications and Information
  Technology
• To help enhance the quality of emerging/existing
  Institutions

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IT

• Stands for
• Information and Communication Technology
• and
• Electronics
• i.e.
• Computing and Communications
• Software and Hardware

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Quality

• Four-Fold
• Research Problem Formulation and Solving
• Which requires
• 2. Teaching State of the Art Courses
• Together which lead to
• 3. Entrepreneurship Deployment of
  Solutions
• For a broad impact, which require
• Societal Sensitivity What problems to
  solve?
• Discerning Eye for Spotting IT Problems in daily
  life

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An Ecosystem

• To
• Acquire Knowledge from Institutions/Experts,
• Adapt, Develop and Integrate,
• and Make Available to Those Who Need it

Develop, Deploy and, Debug and Disseminate Mechani
sms
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Output

• Help Institutions Generate
• Large Numbers of Graduates
• who are
• Advanced IT equipped,
• Societally Sensitive,
• Research savvy,
• Problem Spotters and Solvers and Entrepreneurs

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• An Illustrative Architecture
• of
• ITRA

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ITRA INSTITUIONS IITS, IISC, IIITS, UIUC,
ITRA KNOWHOW DEVELOPMENT Using Time-Varying Pool
s of Experts
Courses Research Themes, Teams
Visiting Faculty, Scientists
Ideas-Debugging at Partner Institutions
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• Illustrative Features/Interactions
• in
• ITRA

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ITRA
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Team Model A Central Feature

• Build RD groups, network them and connect them
  to industry and society
• Attract high quality researchers through
  quality of environment
• Produce large numbers of high quality PhDs
• Produce ideas, prototypes, companies
• Include multitier institutions, mentor-mentee
  pairs raise quality of lower tier institutions
• Summary Dynamic Collaborative Environment

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RD Capacity Building by Interlinking Groups

• ITRA Faculty
  ITRA Faculty
• ITRA PhD students
  ITRA PhD students
• ITRA
  ITRA
• Faculty
  Faculty
• P1 P2
  P2 P3
• ITRA PhD ITRA PhD students
  students

Large Research Groups
Large Research Groups
Lecturers
Small Research Groups
Small Research Groups
Company 1 Product P1, P2
Company 2 Product P2, P3
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Inter-linked Research Groups

• Large Distributed Research Group (LDRG)
• Links 3-4 institutions
• Links 3-4 research groups
• 5-6 Faculty members
• 20 Research students
• 2 Industry linkages
• Small Distributed Research Group (SDRG)
• Links 2 institutions
• Links 2 research groups
• 2-3 Faculty members
• 10 Research students
• Possibly 1 industry linkage

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Handling the Scale of India
Via Local Parallel Collaboration

• Begin with a small initial team
• Debug mechanisms
• Expand fast (e.g., double size every few years)
• Exponential growth

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A Pyramidal Model of Growth

• Example
• Each partner institution
• adds
• two partners
• every two years

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1


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Scope of ITRA Activities

• Through Focus Areas
• IT Areas
• Research Centers
• Interdisciplinary, IT-in-X Areas
• Problems Solving Labs
• Choice of IT/X focus areas
• driven by priorities and opportunities

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Building the Pyramid

• Composed of Sub-pyramids
• Each sub-pyramid associated with one focus area
• Multiple Collaborating teams within each
  sub-pyramid
• Teams selected and funded by ITRA
• Monitored and helped for quality enhancement by
  ITRA

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A FOCUS AREA SUB-PYRAMID Multiple Teams


TEAM 1




n
TEAM n


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Focus Area Pyramids? ITRA Pyramid

• ITRA Pyramid Coexisting Focus Area Pyramids
• To Ensure Collaboration
• Basic Unit of Pyramid Construction
• 1 Mentor 2 Mentee IIs
  Called a Pyralet
• Every Cycle (2 Years), the Pyramid
• Rises in Quality
• Fresh Mentee IIs Join at the Bottom
• Gets Taller (Doubles in Number)
• ? Exponential Growth

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Organization Support from ITRA

• Formation of II teams.
• Connecting with experts (for Advisory Board).
• Establishing curricula, laboratories, facilities
• Hiring of faculty (Named ITRA professorships,
  salary top-ups, start-up grants, visits to
  Advisory Board and co-advising students, travel
  support to conferences, support for
  entrepreneurial activities, awards
• Adjunct faculty visits
• Attracting students to PhD, etc
• Transfer of developed technologies.

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ITRA Status

• Work started in June 2011
• Seed Funding of 150 Crores over 5 Years
• So far, Two Focus Areas Launched
• IT Mobile Computing, Networking and Applications
• IT-in-X IT Based Water Sustainability Solutions
• RFPs issued to build the two Sybpyramids

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It is Time to Form a Team

• If you want to be a Mentor II, find two Mentees
• If you want to be a Mentee
• If you have formed a pyralet
• Discuss your proposal theme
• Be ambitious
• If you think your objectives require more IIs
  then
• Team up with more pyralets
• Start working on the proposal in two stages
• Expression of interest
• If invited, prepare a fullproposal

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Details of Support

• Length of Award 3 years.
• Year 3 add mentees, supplemental budget for layer
  3
• Estimated Number of Awards
• Roughly 6 pyralets (18 IIs)
• 2 (large) teams of 9 IIs -- 6 (small) teams of 3
  IIs
• Level of Support
• Roughly 3 Crores per pyralet over 3 years

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Budget Categories

1. Salaries
2. Student Scholarships
3. Travel
4. Adjunct Faculty
5. Domain Experts
6. New Research Labs
7. New Specialized Facilities
8. Remote Activities
9. Entreprenuership
10. Societal Sensitivity Development
11. Mentor-Mentee /Other Collaboration
12. Project Motivated Curricula
13. Special programs to attract undergrads
14. Overhead

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Details of ITRA-Mobile Support

• Length of Award 3 years.
• Year 3 add mentees, supplemental budget for layer
  3
• Estimated Number of Awards
• As justified by focus area/proposal quality
• Rule of thumb 6 pyralets (18IIs)
• Or 6, could be 2 (large) teams of 9 IIs or
• 6 (small) teams of 3 IIs, in the middle
• Level of Support
• Flexible
• Rule of thumb 3 Crores per pyralet over 3 years

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Details of Support

• Similar Numbers for ITRA-Water

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Timeline
  RFP posted   Wednesday, December 7, 2011  
  Expression of Interest (EOI) deadline for online submission     Tuesday, January 31, 2012, 5pm
  Feedback on EOI to teams   Wednesday, February 15, 2012
  Proposal deadline for online submission     Tuesday, March 20, 2012, 5pm
  Site Visits/Presentations (if any)     Monday, April 3 Friday, April 7, 2012
  Announcement of awards     Friday, April 20, 2012
  Projects start date     Monday, May 14, 2012
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More information

• (1)   ITRA homepage
• http//medialabasia.in/itra/itra/index.php
• (2)  Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page
• http//medialabasia.in/itra/itra/index.php?option
  com_jefaqviewfaqItemid81
• (3) Instructions for submission
• http//medialabasia.in/itra/itra/index.php?option
  com_contentviewarticleid1022Itemid64
• http//medialabasia.in/itra/itra/index.php