Building on the symbiotic research co-operation in automobile sector launched two years ago between Nissan and Indian Institute of Technology- Madras (IITM), two IITM students were awarded Nissan Foundation Scholarship recently. The two students, Aniruddh R Padia and Siddharth Kumar Thakur, were selected by the joint steering committee of Nissan Global Foundation and IIT-Madras for the prestigious scholarship.
The Nissan Foundation Scholar Program is an initiative by the Nissan Global Foundation (NGF) in collaboration with IIT-Madras to groom talented students. This is the first such programme outside Japan by NGF.
The scholarship also offers to provide selected students a short training at Nissan headquarters in Japan and an internship at Renault Nissan Technology and Business Centre India (RNTBCI), in addition to the financial grant.
Nissan is also engaged in collaborative research projects with IIT-Madras in frontier areas of automobile technology. In addition, Nissan runs the ‘Nissan Support Program' to support Research & Development Projects at IIT-M in the area of Engineering, Science, Management, Humanities and Social Sciences. A maximum of five projects are chosen for funding every year from proposals received from the faculty of IIT-M. This further emphasizes Nissan's commitment in the field of education and research in India.
Awarding the scholarships, Takao Asami, trustee, Nissan Global Foundation & Corporate vice-president, Nissan Motor, Japan, said, “at Nissan, we firmly believe in nurturing young talent. We are happy to take our unique relationship with IIT-M, started through research collaboration programmes, a step further with the endowment of the scholarships for the second consecutive year. We hope that these scholarship grants and the research therein will benefit the Indian and global automobile sectors in the long run.”
Dr. Job Kurian, Professor and Dean of the Centre for Industrial Consultancy & Sponsored Research (IC&SR), IIT-Madras, said, “We laud Nissan's commitment to Indian automobile industry and its efforts to encourage engineering talent in the country. The scholarships offered to the two deserving students are definitely a step in the right direction and is an important step towards nurturing a symbiotic and mutually beneficial relationship. We look forward to a long and rewarding relationship with Nissan.”
Dr. K Ramamurthy, Dean, Academics, IIT-M, and Hiraoki Harata, vice-president, Renault Nissan Technology and Business Centre India, were present on the occasion.
