The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) have signed a Memorandum of Agreement aimed at creating an ecosystem for human resource development in High Performance Computing (HPC) and allied areas. The MoA was signed by Prof. T. G. Sitharam, Chairman AICTE, and Col. Asheet Nath (Retd.), Executive Director, C-DAC Pune and Corporate Strategy, in the presence of Shri S. Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), along with other officials from MeitY and the Department of Science and Technology (DST).
The key activities outlined in the MoA include:
- Master Trainer Programs: Conducting training and refresher programs for Master Trainers to enhance their teaching skills in HPC and allied technologies. These Master Trainers will, in turn, train faculty members in colleges.
- Quality Improvement Programs: Offering training programs to enhance the subject expertise in HPC and allied technologies for faculty from streams other than Computer Science.
- Courses on SWAYAM: Providing HPC courses on the Ministry of Education’s SWAYAM platform, which offers free online courses to learners across various disciplines.
- Formulation of Industry-Aligned Courses: Designing HPC-related courses that meet the current and emerging requirements of the HPC industry.
- Offering C-DAC Developed HPC Learning Platforms: Providing HPC learning platforms like PARAM Shavak, PARAM Vidya, and others through AICTE to nominated institutes.
- Krishnan, Secretary, MeitY, emphasized that the HPC-aware manpower development activity under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) will now reach a wider audience in engineering colleges across the country. He stated, ‘This will help build HPC-related capability in the technical workforce, making them ready for the industry.’
Prof. T. G. Sitharam, Chairman AICTE, remarked, ‘With the signing of this MoA between AICTE and C-DAC, we are taking a significant step towards creating a robust ecosystem for High Performance Computing (HPC) education in India.’ He also highlighted that this initiative aligns perfectly with the goals of the National Supercomputing Mission and the vision of NEP 2020, ensuring that the technical education system in India remains at the forefront of global advancements.
The NSM is a flagship program of the Government of India aimed at building capacity and capability in HPC in the country, executed by MeitY and DST. AICTE, responsible for the planning and coordinated development of the technical education system across India, is partnering with C-DAC to proliferate HPC education in AICTE affiliated colleges.
It is anticipated that 2,500 faculty members from approximately 1,000 engineering colleges across India will be trained through 50 Faculty Development Programs (FDP). These trained faculty members will then teach HPC-related topics to about 50,000 students as part of their curriculum. Awareness programs introducing the nuances of HPC will be conducted in 1,000 colleges, eventually reaching out to 100,000 students. Additionally, it is proposed to install 50 PARAM Shavak – ‘Supercomputing Solution in a Box’ units by C-DAC in AICTE affiliated institutions, providing students with hands-on experience using supercomputers.
