IIMB to work with University of Oslo, MoU signed

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, APRIL 23. The Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB) today signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the University of Oslo, Norway, marking what Ms. Inger Stray Lien, Assistant University Director, termed ``a milestone in two Indo-Norwegian projects already going on for some years''.

The MoU, signed by the IIMB Director, Dr. M. Rammohan Rao, and Ms. Stray Lien, in the presence of the Norwegian Prime Minister, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg, provides for cooperation between the two institutions in the areas of research and student exchange.

As part of the MoU, research projects would be taken up on topics, including Global Software Outsourcing and Health Information Systems for implementation in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Another proposal is to start a Masters Programme in International Informatics in which students from India, Norway and the United Kingdom would participate. The programme would run in IIMB as well as in Oslo.

Under the Student Exchange Programme, each institution would send a minimum of two students every academic year for a period of study lasting one or two semesters. The purpose of this was to enable students to enroll in subjects at the host institution for credit that would be applied towards their degree at their home institution. There would also be exchange programmes for faculty and staff. The agreement would remain in force for five years.

Ms. Stray Lien said the close interaction between IIMB and the University of Oslo had thrown up many interesting findings. Western firms outsourced software for programming work, and this had shown the vast differences in the Indian and Western ways of working on software development. Under the MoU, shared understanding of the tasks would be built through long-term relationships and personal contacts.

In the information systems in primary healthcare project under way in Kolar in Karnataka and Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh, pilot installations of a computerised District Health Information System were planned, along the lines of those developed in the projects in South Africa and Mozambique.

Ms. Lien said the system could analyse and compare data in ways that would be useful for management at all levels, from clinics throughout the district and province to the national level. The system had proved especially effective in tuberculosis treatment in South Africa. This would constitute an important building block in an ambitious project for electronic governance, she said.

On the Students Exchange Programme, Ms. Lien said India was definitively a highly developed country in the information technology sector, and the Indian experience would be of immense interest to poor countries that were willing to invest in the software industry.

`New chapter': Mr. Stoltenberg described the MoU as a ``new chapter'' in the long friendship shared by India and Norway. The IT sector, energy and industry were the areas where the two countries had been cooperating, he said, and welcomed the MoU as an important step towards cooperation in academics.

Mr. Stoltenberg, who confessed that he had briefly strayed from his chosen field of politics when he was 27 years old ``with delusions that he was cut out to be an academic'', said he had actually studied hard for two years believing that he could become a professor before he was 35.

But soon, he realised he was not cut out for it, and decided to return to politics, only to become a Prime Minister, a job which he found was much easier.

However, he said he knew the value of academics and appreciated the fact that the tow countries could cooperate for their mutual benefit.

Dr. Rammohan Rao explained the activities of IIMB. Prof. S. Krishna, Chairperson, Software Enterprise Programme, welcomed the gathering which included the chief executives of software firms headquartered here.

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