American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and Indo US Collaboration for Engineering Education (IUCEE) announced the proceedings of the first of the two Action Planning Forums for Indo US collaboration in engineering education. Hosted by KrisGopalakrishnan, MD and CEO-Designate of Infosys at their Mysore Campus, the forum saw leaders of engineering education and engineering businesses from US and India, along with several government dignitaries. The 81 participants included several directors, deans of engineering colleges, vice chancellors as well as over 25 business representatives. Prof. N. Balakrishnan, Associate Director, Indian Institute of Science and Dr. Frank Huband, Executive Director, American Society for Engineering Education, welcomed the participants on behalf of the organizers. Prof V.S. Arunachalam, Former Scientific Advisor to DefenceMinister, Dr. T. Ramasami, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology andDr. D. Acharya, Chairman of All India Council for Technical Education, delivered keynote at the event.

The goal of the Forum was to develop an action plan for improving the quality and global relevance of engineering education in India and in the US. The main concern was the lack of interest in science and engineering in the US, inadequate preparation of engineering graduates in India, the shortage of students pursuing Ph.D. programs in engineering in India and the need to encourage and support women and underrepresented minorities in engineering careers in both countries. The participants discussed several successful and promising models of collaborations, which have potential for scaling up.

One of the key outcomes of these action planning forums could be the establishment of an Indo US Engineering Faculty Institute with four thrust areas: curriculum and delivery, quality and accreditation, research and development, and innovation and entrepreneurship. Cross cutting themes for these thrust areas are industry needs and global relevance. This Institute would help improve the watchfulness of the large number of faculty in engineering colleges in India and in the US to address the needs of the global economy. Another outcome could be the development of an Indo US Engineering Student Network for facilitating student internships and interactions as well as providing students access to high quality learning materials. Expectations are that ASEE and International Federation of Engineering EducationSocieties (IFEES) would link the Student Network to the Global Student Forum currently sponsored. Initial support for the planning was obtained from Infosys, Deshpande Foundation, IndoUS Science and Technology Forum as well as the corporations Hewlett Packard, National Instruments, Dassault Systems, Microsoft, Autodesk, Agilent Technologies and UGS.

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