Research in wireless technology in India just received a Canadian boost when an IIT professor in Delhi was awarded a research chair from Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), one of world’s leading institutions in international development.
Dr Ranjan K. Mallik, IDRC Research Chair in Wireless Communications will team with Dr Robert Schober, the Canada Research Chair from the University of British Columbia (UBC), to conduct joint research on the most pressing problems of wireless communication system design. This collaboration will also strengthen UBC’s involvement with the Centre of Excellence in Telecommunication Technology and Management, IIT Delhi, established by the Government of India.
The International Research Chairs Initiative (IRCI) is a collaboration between Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Canada Research Chairs Program. Launched in December 2007, applications are solicited for joint research between Canada Research Chairs and their counterparts at universities in the developing world. The selected teams will receive up to $1 million over five years, each to address a key development challenge.
Prof Mallik and Schober’s team was one of the eight successful teams which were selected among 104 applications through a rigorous peer-review process.
“I look forward to this collaborative research program,” said Dr Mallik, Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and recipient of the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in engineering sciences.
The demand for wireless communications is expected to significantly increase over the next decade especially in emerging industrial nations such as India. This strong growth is of vital importance to India’s economy and to large sections of the Indian population that do not have access to technologies such as mobile phones, fixed Internet access, and mobile Internet access. The growth can only be sustained through high quality research for improved and affordable products and highly qualified personnel to implement these new ideas.
The research between professors Mallik and Schober will address these two needs and provide significant opportunities for technology transfer to industry. Its long-term goal is to generate fundamental theories and technologies that have a lasting impact on the field of wireless communications and to foster research and development in the wireless communications sector in India and in Canada.
The two professors will closely collaborate with Canadian companies like Bell Canada, SierraWireless, fSONA Systems and Indian companies Sasken, STMicroelectronics, GM India Science Laboratory that are supporting this project.
More details can be found at: www.idrc.ca/irci
