Mncs Ignore Us Caveat, Make Beeline For Iisc

Even as the United States has put the Indian Institute of Science (IISC) on the watch list, top multinational companies including those of the US are making a beeline to the institute to tap the brain power of the premier academy.

US companies that have forged alliances with IISC include big names in the computer and microprocessor industry such as Sun Microsystems, Texas Instru-ments, General Electric and IBM.

Others itching to tie up with the institute are Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett Packard and Mon Sando. The trend of multinationals looking for premier academic institutes such as IISC and Indian institutes of technology (IITs) for quality research began two years ago, says IISC director G Padmanabhan, who has signed more than a dozen agreements with multinationals in the period.

 

Ten per cent of the total projects underway in the institute are being sponsored by private infotech companies, multinational as well as domestic, and this will go up in the years to come as more and more companies realise the potential of the institute, says Padmanabhan. Not to be left out, the non-US multinationals are also following suit. Those which have already made an entry include Bell Northern Research of Canada, Samsung Electronics and LG Software of South Korea and Nokia Corporation of Finland.

Padmanabhans lament on the tepid response of Indian firms is: My worry is that why dont Indian companies come forward in a big way to tap this potential.