Kolkata: In a sincere bid to connect its existing as well as upcoming Centres of Excellence (CoEs) associated with emerging technologies to society, Webel is collaborating with premier universities in the state.The latest collaboration has been with Calcutta University to promote research and development besides undertaking a plethora of joint initiative programmes in emerging technology for the academicians and students of the varsity.
“In the last three to four years, we have made a paradigm shift to embrace emerging technology totally deviating from a placid and standard training module.
At present, we have three CoEs and we are in the process of setting up more CoEs so that the society can keep pace with technological advancement. We are trying to set up a CoE on 5G and we are hopeful of getting assistance from CU in this regard,” a senior official of state Information Technology and Electronics (IT&E) department said. The official added that such collaboration will be of mutual benefit as the university stakeholders will be able to develop their skills in emerging technology from Webel’s technical expertise while Webel can bridge the knowledge gap of all the stakeholders.“Translational research is missing, and we are hopeful that through such collaborations with academia, we will be able to make research much more market-oriented,” the official maintained.
In the last few months, Webel has signed MoUs with IIIT Kalyani and St. Xaviers’ University but the latest one with Calcutta University (CU) has been the most satisfying because CU has so many affiliating colleges. The three existing CoEs run by Webel are CoE for Cyber Security, CoE for Industrial IOT Sensor and CoE for Industry 4.0 focusing on 3D printing and animation.
The various components of emerging technology that Webel is working on include Cyber Security, Data Science, IOT and Embedded Systems, Cyber Forensics, Animation and Gaming, 3D printing, Drone, Smart City Technology like smart metering, IOT sensor, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Machine Learning among others. “We are eyeing a collaboration with Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Technology (MAKAUT) and Jadavpur University (JU). We will soon be setting up a smart metre testing laboratory for which we are approaching JU,” said the official.