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Aum Amriteswaryai Namah!
Welcome to the portals of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, born out of AMMA’s Infinite Compassion!
This past one year has been one of fast-paced progress for Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham into truly becoming a temple of world-class research and learning. This was also the period in which Amrita University, under the direction of its parent organization, Mata Amritanandamayi Math, rushed to contribute significantly towards Tsunami relief and reconstruction in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
During the past one year, our Center for Biotechnology, with its approximately US$2 Million budget from TIFAC and international corporate partners such as MDS Pharma Services (world's largest pharmaceutical research outsourcing company), was dedicated by Secretary of Science and Technology. This Center has attracted world-class full-time faculty from Seattle, Tennessee, UCLA, and University of Texas. The Center has embarked on ambitious interdisciplinary projects such as an automatic insulin pump, in close partnership with Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) and Amrita School of Engineering. In the third quarter of 2005, the President of India visited us and launched a nation-wide network of village resource centers. This network made it possible for communities from eight different villages to simultaneously interact over high bandwidth interactive (two-way) audio and video communication with doctors from Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences. Several prominent multinational corporations such as Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Cognizant, Oracle, IL&FS, Infosys, and Dhanalakshmi Bank also invested significantly here at AMRITA towards developing information and communication technologies-based healthcare services for India's vast rural population.
During AMMA’s tour of the United States during the June-July months of 2005, AMRITA Vishwa Vidyapeetham also architected and lead a consortium of Indian organizations including the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) to sign a landmark Indo-US University Initiative with six top-ranked US Universities, namely, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, Cornell, CMU, SUNY Buffalo, and Case Western Reserve University. This agreement was signed in Washington, DC adjoining the White House, during the visit of our Prime Minister on July 20, 2005 (Gurupoornima Day).
In the first quarter of 2005, our Amrita Research Labs (ARL) successfully tested and deployed our newly invented Telematics System in Konkan Railway's Skybus. As a result of the success of this system, a newly funded multi-crore project to develop an intelligent telematics system with vehicular units, wireless network,
and control center for the metropolitan transport network was awarded to ARL. We were also awarded a Center of Excellence in Cybersecurity, at a total budget of about US$1.3 Million from TIFAC. This Center is forging a collaboration between SETS, an organization under the principal scientific advisor to the government of India, and the University of California at Los Angeles, Carnegie Mellon University, and CITRIS at the University of California at Berkeley. ARL was also awarded about US$1 Million towards establishing a Technology Business Incubator for promoting entrepreneurship.
Owing to AMMA’s global reach, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences has been tremendously successful in
attracting renowned medical doctors and researchers from reputed Universities such as Oxford, New York, St. Louis, etc. to join us full-time here at Kochi. They have begun to establish cutting-edge research programs
in some of the most challenging areas that mankind faces today, such as Oncology. We also established a Center for Digital Health which has been awarded funding from the Media Lab Asia to develop wireless enabled ubiquitous telemedicine services.
Our Hospital Information System, which transformed the 1300-bed super-specialty Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences into an all-digital hospital, has been selected as the exclusive system of choice by multinational corporates such as Hewlett Packard (HP), prominent hospitals, and medical colleges.
One of the most valuable aspects of AMRITA is its environment and ambience for inter-disciplinary research,
between its schools of medicine, engineering, and biotechnology. An example is the soon to be launched Center for Nano-Biotechnology, by leading researchers who have just joined us full-time from pre-eminent institutions such as the University of Massachussetts Amherst and other institutions.
During the course of the last one year, we were the institution of choice for hosting several international conferences, in a wide spectrum of frontier fields from Cardiology in Medicine to Advanced Computing and Communications in IT, and our faculty published numerous papers and several books.
The close of 2005 saw fifteen top-ranked universities including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Purdue, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, University of Washington, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, Georgia Tech, Universit of Wisconsin, etc. signing with AMRITA Vishwa Vidyapeetham to launch the Indo-US Inter-University Collaborative Initiative in Higher Education and Learning (www.amrita.edu/indo-us). Distinguished academic leaders from Harvard, UC San Diego, University of California Office of the President, etc. visited us to formally sign this landmark Initiative Into Agreement on December 7, 2005. As a result of this 5-year agreement, eminent faculty in all fields including Healthcare from these world-renowned universities will come to Amrita to deliver full-fledged courses and also lead research projects and programs.
Amrita transforms even the ordinary into extra-ordinary. We invite you to join us – and grow into becoming tomorrow’s leader in solving the monumental medical, scientific and societal challenges being faced by our country and the world today.
Prayerfully invoking AMMA's bountiful grace and blessings on you for a very fruitful educational career,
at AMMA’s Lotus Feet,
Dr. P Venkat Rangan [ Click
here for a profile ]
Vice Chancellor
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
Email:vcoffice[AT]amrita[DOT]edu
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