The Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT-Guwahati) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Mehta Family Foundation (MFF), Houston, Texas, USA, to establish the ‘Jyoti and Bhupat Mehta School of Health Sciences and Technology.’ This New School at IIT Guwahati will commence academic activities during the current academic year.
The MoU was signed virtually on 14th May 2022 in the presence of Prof. Ajay K. Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, Dr. Rajiv I. Modi, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Guwahati, and Chairman and Managing Director, Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Shri Rahul Mehta, CEO, Mehta Family Foundation, Prof Ananth Grama, Prof. Rajiv K. Gupta, Prof. Shankar Subramaniam, Prof. T. G. Sitharam, Director, IIT Guwahati, Prof. S. K. Kakoty, Deputy Director, IIT Guwahati, and other Deans as well as faculty members of IIT Guwahati.
The newly established school aims to train the students in topics related to Health Science and Technology, with the emphasis on courses from other disciplines of science and engineering such as Biosciences and Bioengineering, Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Mathematics and Statistics, and Design.
The school will:
(i) Foster cutting-edge research and innovation
(ii) Establish new standards of pedagogy and hands-on training methods in the areas related to the health sciences
(iii) Create a niche of startups and MSMEs who will provide evidence-based affordable healthcare technologies
(iv) Promote state-of-art biomedical and public health education
This school will have highly-qualified full-time faculty alongside having the guidance of the associated faculty members from diverse disciplines within IIT Guwahati, who have experience in nurturing the existing Masters’ and PhD programme in the Engineering, Science, and Design departments.. The first batch of 20 M.Tech students in the stream of Biomedical Science and Engineering will be admitted to IIT Guwahati through GATE 2022.
Highlighting the initiatives to be taken up by the New Centre, Prof. T. G. Sitharam, Director, IIT Guwahati, said, “The institute profoundly thanks the Mehta Family Foundation for their generous support towards establishing this second new programme on Health Sciences and Technology at IIT Guwahati, which will inculcate cutting-edge education and research in the areas related to therapeutics, diagnostics, prosthesis, implantation, bioinformatics, molecular biology, regenerative medicine, stem cells, public health, and health data analytics, among many others. The impact of such translational education and research is rather far-reaching since they will not only fulfil the demands of having sufficiently qualified postgraduates in the service of the nation but also catalyze the research output matching the global standards.”
Speaking about the vision of the USA-based Mehta Family Foundation, its Chief Executive Officer Rahul Mehta said, “The Mehta Family Foundation has supported higher education in India and internationally for decades. It is an absolute privilege to partner with IITG to create this new school of Health Science and Technology. We believe that education is fundamental for economic development. This multi-disciplinary research and education school will foster innovation in new areas at the frontier of the healthcare revolution to deliver sustainable solutions to improve the healthcare of the people in India.”
This new multi-disciplinary programme on Health Sciences and Technology at IIT Guwahati has been designed based on National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The NEP advocates development of a holistic academic curriculum to nurture the best talents of the country through both pedagogic as well as hands-on training
