Coimbatore: Industries’ ties with technical institutions in the city have become stronger in the past few years, say professors and academics. Also, in the past few years, institutions have been focusing more on internships and industry projects, say academicians. This falls in line with the AICTE’s norm of making internships mandatory for engineering students, they add.Several institutions are introducing courses which would directly address industry needs, while industry representatives say they have been collaborating with institutions in the city for internships, projects and MoUs.Over the past three years, industries have been directly selecting BE and BTech students for internships, said V Selladurai, principal of the Coimbatore Institute of Technology (CIT). “Earlier, firms used to select postgraduate students for internships by holding tests and quizzes, now they are increasingly doing it for undergraduate students too,” he said.Also, CIT has been focussing more on making students undertake internships, he said. “We have been distributing courses from the last semester to earlier semesters so that students can take up internships in the industry,” he said. While students would do the practical parts of their internship in the industry space, research and development would be carried out in the institutions, Selladurai said. Once the students complete the internships and degree, industries would be ready to recruit them, professors said.This seems to be the focus of technical institutions of late. “Today the industry feels it cannot afford to train recruits separately. So we focus on producing industry-ready engineers, not just graduates,” said M Sundaram, programme co-ordinator of robotics and automation engineering at PSG College of Technology.Sundaram said they have been introducing one-credit courses based on industry requirements. “We get inputs from industries to introduce these courses. Lately we have introduced courses on power electronics for welding and aircraft applications, high-strength materials and renewable energy resource. Resource persons from the industry would come to the institute for handling these courses,” said Sundaram.Recently, the institute introduced a one-credit course on artificial intelligence and machine learning in view of the emerging concept of industry 4.0. In this, industrial systems would be automated and connected to the internet, to form an industrial internet of things, to improve productivity and efficiency.Conversely, some institutions also provide training to industry personnel. T V Christy, director of industry-academia collaboration of Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, says the institution has a Siemens Centre of Excellence on its campus, where they train engineers who handle the company’s products across India.Members of the industry said they have been increasingly utilising institutions as they have advanced software and trained faculty where they can undertake consistent research. “Two years ago, ties between the industry and institutions were meagre. Since then, there has been a 10% increase in it,” said K V Karthik, vice president of the Southern India Engineering Manufacturers’ Association (SIEMA).Several technical institutions from the city have also signed MoUs with Coimbatore District Small Industries Association (Codissia). The main purpose of these MoUs is knowledge transfer, says R Ramamurthu, president of Codissia. “We have students who come to study innovations and R&D activities in small scale industries,” he says. However, Ramamurthy adds that institutions should work on taking the MoUs to the next level. “Students should visit the factories,” he says. “They will learn more engineering in small scale industries than in big companies,” he adds.

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