A delegation of five leaders from The Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IITK) visited UC Santa Cruz on November 18, 2019, to meet with campus leadership including Chancellor Larive, various deans, and faculty to discuss research collaboration, student research exchange, and other joint projects.
The IITK delegation consisted of Professors Abhar Karandikar, Director, Debashish Kundu, Dean of Faculty Affairs, Jayant Singh, Dean of Resources and Alumni, and Yogesh Joshi, Dean of International Relations. In addition to the IITK representatives, eight IITK alum all living and working in the Silicon Valley accompanied the group, attending a luncheon hosted by Chancellor Larive and participating in meetings and laboratory visits. These alumni have established successful careers in the Valley as entrepreneurs and senior leadership at companies like Google, SAP, Cisco, and others. IITK has strong connections to the San Jose and San Francisco Bay Area with over 400 alumni members living and working there.
Discussions throughout the day focused on academic areas for potential collaboration in Engineering and in the Biological and Natural Sciences. The delegation toured the Westside Research Park with Dean Wolf of Baskin School of Engineering, visiting the Genomics Institute, the Materials Science and Engineering Initiative Lab, and the Remote Sensing/Drone lab. VC for Research, Scott Brandt, accompanied the group to the Startup Sandbox, an Incubator for bioscience research.
There is an opportunity for UCSC and IITK to submit a proposal through the Indian government-funded Scheme for the Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) that would fund joint faculty symposiums to further explore areas of research collaboration. If awarded, this grant would fund travel and other expenses for two faculty symposiums over 2 years; one hosted at UCSC and another hosted at IITK.
This visit was initiated by P.K. Agarwal, the dean of University Extension at UC Santa Cruz.
A photo slideshow of the delegation’s visit, produced by IITK, is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0I1sTflXcQ&feature=youtu.be.