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Kochi, Feb 12 (IANS) The Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) has decided to set up a centre for innovation and transfer of technology following a huge demand from the NRIs based in the US, Europe and the Middle East, its vice-chancellor said. The decision was taken at a high-level meeting here Monday attended by Infopark chief executive officer Gigo Joseph, Technopark Technology Business Incubation Centre (T-TBIC) managing director K.C. Chandrashekharan Nair, and Technology Business Incubator secretary Arun Balachandran, and Startup Village co-founder Sony Joy. The focus of the new centre would be on hardware and e-governance. The CITTIC will provide all the support to non-resident Indian students who want to become entrepreneurs. The centre hopes to translate the academic research at the university into products and services. The CITTIC will have three major divisions, namely Technology Transfer Office, Technology Business Incubator and Research and Technology Park. "The focus of the business incubator set up by CUSAT will be on information technology, bio-technology and the thrust area will be hardware, which is the first of its kind incubator for core hardware products. e-governance will also be a focus area," said CUSAT vice chancellor Ramachandran Thekkedath. On the need to set up the CITTIC, Thekkedath said the country has great disconnect between the three major entities - university, research establishments and business/industry. "Various universities have approached the long chain technology commercialization in different formats. CUSAT, as the first move among Indian universities, will be able to gain maximum advantage by entering into all these activities spreading the entire chain of research, development and commercialization," he added. "We are receiving positive responses from the student community and budding entrepreneurs from the US, Europe and the Middle East on our incubation initiatives," said Chandrashekharan Nair. "We believe that the next wave of IT revolution will be brought in by homegrown IT companies in Kerala. The focus is to attract talent from the NRI community. This was the main reason we decided to set up NRI-TBI, which was announced by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas held here last month," said Nair.
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