University of Edinburgh-Digital University Kerala MoU signing
St. James Court, London – 11th October 2022
On the 11th of October 2022, Kerala University of Digital Sciences, Innovation and Technology (DUK) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the University of Edinburgh in the presence of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Industrial Minister P. Rajeev, Professor Sethu Vijayakumar, Chair in Robotics University of Edinburgh (Academic Lead), Prof Alex James (Chair, DUK) and Prof Pankaj Pankaj (International Dean for South Asia, UoE) at St. James Court in London.
Kerala University of Digital Sciences, Innovation and Technology is India’s first on-campus digital university, established by Government of Kerala, India. The university was envisaged as a key strategic partner to accelerate the State’s digital adaption by training youths to adapt to the needs of Industry 4.0. Following on from several discussions between UoE and DUK, a visit to Maker Village - a Centre of Excellence (CoE) at DUK, was undertaken by Regional Director South Asia Dr Athulya Aravind and Prof. Sethu Vijayakumar in July 2022 to work out the details of the engagement.
Following the State Government of Kerala’s announcement in 2022, DUK will be leading the establishment of a Digital Science Park and under this project, a Kerala Academy of Artificial Intelligence (KAAI) with a focus on Responsible AI, Explainable & Interpretable AI, AI Hardware, AI for sustainable development, will be established. DUK has invited the University of Edinburgh as the international academic partner to help set up this new initiative and initiate funded collaborative research partnerships through five strands of engagements ranging from cutting edge robotics and AI research funded through PhD studentships, postdoctoral fellowships, and translation pipeline through various AI for Social good Impact accelerator engagements of mutual interest between DUK and UoE. Similar bilateral partnerships were signed by DUK on the occasion with the University of Oxford, focusing on embedded systems and cybersecurity and with the University of Manchester, focusing their expertise on Graphene.
This opportunity to partner with DUK’s upcoming Kerala Academy of Artificial Intelligence (KAAI) will offer Edinburgh University a unique AI capacity building agenda in India. The programme will fund a joint research and entrepreneurship mobility programme in areas of mutual interest to generate the next generation of talents and impactful research and innovation. This university level initiative under the Edinburgh Global umbrella will be led by Professor Sethu Vijayakumar as an academic lead and will be open to application for engagement by PIs across the school under the relevant research topics in 2023. The Alan Turing Institute will be engaged as delivery partners for Special Interest Groups and PhD placements in the areas of Trustworthy, Responsible and Human-Centric AI Interfaces.
