ASEAN researchers get world class facilities in Indian institutions
The Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) sees the ASEAN India Research Training Fellowship (AIRTF) as a unique opportunity for their young scientists to explore, improve and create new connections internationally, said USM Vice-Chancellor Professor Dato’ Dr. Faisal Rafiq Mahamd Adikan.
The AIRTF, which has emerged as a unique platform and a win-win opportunity for participants from the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and India, would add to the experience of their students and academics, he added.
Dr. Faisal said he would promote the research & innovation program by motivating all the young ASEAN researchers to apply for the AIRTF program.
A Malaysian AIRTF fellow Dr Wan Fatma Zuharah Wan Musthapa shared her experiences and benefits from the AIRTF fellowship. She also lauded Dr. Himmat Singh Pawar (Indian supervisor at National Institute of Malaria Research), DST and FICCI for the opportunity via AIRTF fellowship program to enhance her research skills with other researchers.
Dr Pawar highlighted that the unique AIRTF platform is where young researchers from ASEAN get opportunity to do their research work with Indian researchers under the reputed Indian institutions.
Elaborating, Head-International Cooperation Division at DST, S K Varshney, pointed out that researchers from the ASEAN countries get exposed to some of the world class facilities in their immediate neighborhood in India. Indian researchers also get benefited by the experience or challenges brought to them by researchers from the ASEAN region, he added.
Addressing the virtual roadshow for the promotion of AIRTF Scheme and ASEAN India Innovation Platform, Varshney said, “We are excited about this fellowship program and we would like that more and more researchers make good use of this available opportunity.”
The roadshow was organized by FICCI jointly with the Department of Science & Technology (DST) on 4 Aug 2021. It was organized exclusively for the research community of Malaysia and especially the partner university to sensitize them about the two flagship initiatives of the Indian Government and for India ASEAN science and technology partnership.
The AIRTF scheme supports young ASEAN researchers to work at any of the Indian research/academic Institution. This prestigious DST fellowship with FICCI as its implementation partner aims at capacity building of young researchers of ASEAN Member States in science and technology and further strengthens the bond between India and ASEAN Member States. This fully funded fellowship is for a period of 2-6 months. In 2018-20, a total of 127 fellowships have been awarded to young fellows from 8 of 10 ASEAN Member countries.
ASEAN India Innovation Platform (AIIP) is a unique online technology platform that hosts innovative technologies from India and countries in the ASEAN grouping. The platform aims at supporting young entrepreneurs and startups from both India and Malaysia to form collaboration with each other for technology transfer and commercialization. AIIP encourages inter regional innovation led collaboration for better solutions to common issues. The platform currently has more than 350 Indian technologies and solicits similar technologies from Malaysia. #technology #investment #innovation #R&D /fiinews.com
