Shiv Nadar Foundation and Carnegie Mellon University Announce a Landmark Partnership for Scholars in Undergraduate Engineering

PITTSBURGH and NEW DELHI, Nov. 11, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Solidifying their strategic partnership, the Shiv Nadar Foundation and Carnegie Mellon University today announced their intent to make Carnegie Mellon's world-class undergraduate programs in mechanical engineering and electrical and computer engineering more available to Indian students.

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Under this landmark partnership, the first undergraduates will begin their studies in June 2011. Students will study in India at SSN following a curriculum designed by Carnegie Mellon and taught by SSN faculty trained at Carnegie Mellon. They also will study at Carnegie Mellon's main campus in the United States in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Admission and academic processes will have the same rigorous standards that are Carnegie Mellon hallmarks. Once completed with their studies, students will receive Carnegie Mellon degrees.

The Shiv Nadar Foundation and Carnegie Mellon have an existing partnership in providing graduate-level education through a successful Advanced Software Engineering program, in which students take courses at the SSN campus in Chennai and at Carnegie Mellon's Pittsburgh campus.

Speaking on this occasion, Chairman of the Shiv Nadar Foundation and Founder of HCL Shiv Nadar stated, "Global education has always been the big dream for Indian students, particularly so over the last two decades. Each year, more than 40,000 Indian students head overseas in search of global exposure and educational opportunity. This alliance with Carnegie Mellon University will now offer Indian students the chance to access the education architecture of a highly-renowned, world-class institution right here in India." Shiv Nadar added, "We believe that this partnership will be transformational for engineering education. It is fitting therefore, that an institution as revered as CMU, ranked eighth in the world for engineering, has joined the Shiv Nadar Foundation to create this unique program."

Jared L. Cohon, president of Carnegie Mellon University, said, "India's engineers constitute a large proportion of key scientific and research establishments worldwide. This new alliance enables Carnegie Mellon University and the Shiv Nadar Foundation a chance to offer India's students a distinctive edge and international recognition. We believe that this landmark partnership will establish a new way of delivering engineering education to Indian students."

The announcement of this partnership follows upon the efforts by India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and U.S. President Barack Obama to encourage stronger collaboration between higher education institutions in India and the United States, including a higher education summit next year.

About the Shiv Nadar Foundation:

The Shiv Nadar Foundation (http://www.ShivNadarFoundation.org) has been established by Shiv Nadar, Founder, HCL - a $5.5 billion leading global technology and IT enterprise, which employs over 77,000 employees across 29 countries. The 34 year old enterprise, founded in 1976, is one of India's original IT garage start-ups and offers diverse business aligned technology solutions spanning the entire hardware and software spectrum, to a focused range of industry verticals. The Foundation is committed to the creation of a more equitable, meritocracy based society by empowering individuals to bridge the socio-economic divide. To that purpose the Foundation is focused on the rather underdeveloped disciplinary areas in India related to philanthropic transformational education, creativity and art. So far, the Foundation has set up the SSN Institutions (http://www.SSN.edu.in) in 1996, comprising the SSN College of Engineering (already an India top 10 private engineering college), the SSN School of Management and Computer Applications and the SSN School of Advanced Software Engineering, in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Building on the experience from successfully running the SSN Institutions, the Shiv Nadar Foundation now proposes to set up the Shiv Nadar University in a 286-acre campus adjacent to Delhi. The vision is to create a centre of excellence in education at par with premier education institutions worldwide. The institution will take up education at the under-graduate and post-graduate levels, and will also have a strong focus on high quality, result oriented research. The land for the institution has been acquired and plans are underway.

About Carnegie Mellon University:

Carnegie Mellon University (http://www.cmu.edu) is a global research university with more than 11,000 students, 84,000 alumni, and 4,000 faculty and staff. Recognized for its world-class arts and technology programs, collaboration across disciplines and innovative leadership in education, Carnegie Mellon is consistently a top-ranked university. The university began as a small technical school and evolved into what it is today under the guidance of exceptional leadership teams. CMU's world-renowned faculty members are practicing professionals who bring extensive knowledge and experience into the classroom. With a student-faculty ratio of 10:1, faculty members are extremely accessible and take a genuine interest in their students' work. CMU does not operate like other universities. From the beginning, innovation has been a part of Carnegie Mellon's DNA. The university just launched "Inspire Innovation," a $1 billion comprehensive campaign to build on its unparalleled success. Carnegie Mellon consists of seven schools and colleges: Carnegie Institute of Technology (College of Engineering), the College of Fine Arts, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Heinz College, the Mellon College of Science, the School of Computer Science and the Tepper School of Business.

SOURCE Carnegie Mellon University