Chennai,9th July 2018: CHENNAI, 09th July 2018: Indian Institute of Technology Madras is offering Online M.Tech Program in Communications and Signal Processing for Bharat Electronics Limited Employees. The Public Sector Undertaking will sponsor a minimum of 10 candidates in 2018-19 for the online user-oriented M.Tech program for a course period of three years.
This course is part of an IIT Madras initiative to offer online M.Tech Programmes aimed at meeting specific Industry requirements. The Master of Technology in Communications and Signal Processing is being offered by Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras, to start with. The programme can be extended as per mutual consultation between BEL and IIT Madras. New topics can be added in the coming years based on mutual agreement.
Mr. R.N. Bagdalkar, Director (Human Resources), Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), and Prof. V. Jagadeesh Kumar, Dean (Academic Courses), IIT Madras, signed the MoU in presence of Prof Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras, and BEL officials on 25th June 2018.
Speaking about the importance of this Program, Prof. Devendra Jalihal, Head, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras, said, “This MoU will enable engineers from BEL to be trained in advanced theoretical concepts and to earn an MTech degree at a pace suitable to every individual, without any interruption in their usual work schedule. BEL will benefit from having trained engineers. IIT Madras will be able to enhance its outreach activity without any increase in physical resources. In a sense, both the parties will benefit from coming together”
The industry M.Tech programme is aimed at enabling working professionals to obtain an M.Tech degree from IIT Madras. The M.Tech degree, awarded upon successful completion of the necessary credits over a period of three years, is no different from the resident M.Tech degree.
Looking forward to this collaboration with IIT Madras, Mr. R.N. Bagdalkar, Director (Human Resources), Bharat Electronics Limited, said, “IIT Madras has come out with a novel methodology of providing video conference based/ virtual classroom based and customized M.Tech programs of value add to Defence Electronic Company like ours. This will not only contribute towards make in India efforts or ZED schemes of Govt of India, but also help in empowering the Nation’s Defence Forces.”
Online live video lecture streaming is the USP of this offering. The programme has been running successfully for one year now with the first batch of students from Qualcomm, the American multinational company. Besides BEL, other companies are also planning to come on board for M.Tech courses.
Based on the feedback received from the first batch, many improvements to the program have been incorporated. The key among them is moving to a trimester model from a semester model to enable students to complete up to four courses a year comfortably.
The industry M.Tech is not a correspondence course. Employees are part of live lecture sessions every week and take the same kind of exams that regular students at IIT Madras would. The courses are not any different in content and rigor compared to the ones offered to resident M.Tech students at IIT Madras.
The students would be selected based on an entrance exam conducted by IIT Madras. This M.Tech programme is offered for professionals in the Industry. The programme requirements will follow the same guidelines applicable to regular M.Tech programmes in terms of number of credits to be earned for the degree.
