Altair and DesignTech Systems to set up CoE in collaboration with Science & Tech Park, Pune

The US-based Altair Engineering has announced a collaborative effort with its partner in India, DesignTech Systems, and the Science and Technology Park, an institute supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), government of India, to support the advancement of the Skill India programme.

The objective of this skill enhancement programme is to enable a large number of Indian youth to take up industry-relevant product design skill training that will help them in securing a better livelihood. The agreement to establish an Engineering Centre of Excellence (CoE) for research, innovation and skill building, is therefore expected to benefit a large community of students, academic institutes and overall industry.  

Speaking on the occasion of this technical collaboration, Dilip Band, president of the Science and Technology Park, Pune said, “This COE is expected to complement current courses undertaken by the state institutions, aiming at bridging the gap between quality of vocational engineering skills of students and skill level expected of them by the industry. This would enable students to be industry ready thereby giving them an edge for better compensation and helping industry in saving time in re-training the candidate thereby increasing their efficiency. We look forward to this collaboration for the benefit of all.”

Adding further, Dr Rajendra Jagdale, director general and CEO of Science and Tech Park, said: “This will promote start-ups in the design domain. The Park is collaborating with several prominent education institutions in Maharashtra and other part of India to set up these centres jointly such as Rayat Shikshan Sanstha, Vidya Pratishthan Baramati, Deogiri education institutes in Aurangabad, Chhatrapati Shahu in Pune and similar institutes.”

Pratap Pawar, vice-president of STP, added, “This initiative will give a major boost for imparting high-end technical skills in youth and make them ready for employment or self-employment. Industries in Maharashtra will get a major support by getting high end skilled manpower.”

The engineering Centre of Excellence will encompass the following labs:

- Product Design Lab
- Additive Manufacturing Lab
- Design Validation Lab
- Manufacturing Assessment Lab
- Flow and Thermal Lab
- Communication lab for IoT
- Signal Processing and Communication lab for IoT
- Control Systems and Mechatronics lab for IoT

According to Pavan Kumar, vice-president, South Asia and managing director, Altair India, said: “We are happy to collaborate with the Science and Technology Park in Pune. These initiatives are designed to use technological solutions and resources to better align technical institutes with industry requirements – by getting diploma and graduate students who are industry ready, and boost entrepreneurship in these budding engineers. Altair offers many programs to foster and promote the engineering discipline by providing real-world experience and skills.”

Speaking on the occasion, Vikas Khanvelkar, chairman and managing director – DesignTech Systems, said: “In a globalised, technology driven, evolving world of product design and innovation, Altair Engineering in collaboration with DesignTech Systems intends to propose the Altair Centre of Excellence for research, innovation and skill building with focus on enhancing student exposure to best practices of design, engineering and consideration to enhance possibilities of their employment. The Centre of Excellence can also extend engineering consultancy to small and medium scale manufacturing industries as classified under MSME (Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises).” 

Altair says it has been supporting various education and research initiatives under its Global Skill and Innovation development initiative to harness the technical education eco-system through its experience in the industrial products and services.

The Scitech Park is a prime centre on the campus of university to promote techno-preneurs by way of entrepreneurship awareness and training, technology development and incubation of hi-tech start-ups. The Scitech Park facilitates IPR and Technology management, industry sponsored research, providing technology inputs for various governmental and industrial developmental projects.