6th November 2007

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Members of the Indo-UK Consortium attending a technical workshop in Bangalore.   Seated front left Professor Jhunjhunwala- Scientific Advisor to Indian Prime Minister, next to him Professor Gerard Parr and back row centre- Dr Nader Azarmi of BT Group

Ulster scientists are taking part in a major UK-India research initiative which, ultimately, could lead to the development of technology for remote management of utilities, water quality detection and flood monitoring. 

The University of Ulster-led consortium of international experts plans to establish a Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks embracing the UK and India. 

Professor Gerard Parr from Ulster’s Faculty of Computing and Engineering, who established the UK-India initiative, said there are around 800m people living in rural parts of India who do not have access to clean water or sustainable electricity or communications technologies which can support equitable access to education and health services.  

He said the consortium has the expertise to address these problems in the design, planning and deployment of large scale technology systems that can provide wireless Internet access in rural villages and towns. Separately, scalable wireless grid  technology using application-specific sensors  could be used in a wide range of ways, including power management, water quality detection and flood plain monitoring.  

The latter would contribute to any regional or country-wide emergency response systems required by government. However, such applications are in the near future and the initial thrust of the main project is to foster research into both the hardware and software systems needed to enable the Next Generation Internet to evolve on the scale required to deliver sustainable benefits to people in both countries.  

The project could have an economic spin-off benefit to Northern Ireland as Professor Parr will be encouraging major Indian ICT companies to visit the province to avail of our our excellent and cost effective skills base should they wish to establish a research operation in the UK. Meanwhile the consortium has secured funding of £145,000 from the prestigious Engineering and Physical Science Research Council’s (EPSRC) INTERACT 5 programme. 

Professor Parr is collaborating with Indian and UK academic partners including University College London, University of Surrey, Bristol University, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, University of St Andrews, Birmingham University, Indian Institute of Technology  Mumbai, Lancaster University, University of Southampton, Indian Institute of Technology  Delhi, Queen Mary University of London, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore and the University of Cambridge.

The EPSRC INTERACT funding comes at an important time for the consortium and will be used to support technical meetings and workshops between the research-active partners both in the UK and at partner sites in India.  Professor Parr will be assisted in this initiative by his co-Principal Investigator, Professor Bryan Scotney, the Director of the Computer Science Research Institute at Ulster. 

Professor Parr said: “Competition for these funds was very tough and I am delighted to say that not only were we successful but we were ranked first by the peer-review funding committee.  This has provided a great boost to our entire consortium and provides us with a mandate to move to the next stage in our plans.”

At a larger scale, the initiative aims to establish the first  India-UK Advanced Technology Centre (IU-ATC) in Next Generation Networks, Systems and Services, which will have  BT Group as its prime industrial driver in collaboration with the largest ICT companies in India, most notably InfoSys Technologies, Sasken Communications and Wipro Technologies,  with additional collaboration from  key SME's in the IT sector from both countries and campus spin-out companies from the Indian Institutes of Technology. 

In the longer term the project will put in place the support infrastructure to facilitate, encourage  and enable the Digital Economy in both countries as part of an initial five year programme of collaboration between the UK and India.

Professor Parr paid tribute to Dr Nader Azarmi, Chief Technologist of BT in the UK and Indian colleagues, particularly Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT Madras, for their support in the project to date. He also acknowledged the support he has obtained from his academic colleagues and industrial partners in InfoSys, Wipro and Sasken. 

He added: “Working with like-minded colleagues in India is both rewarding and also a challenge.  It is only through important funding programmes like EPSRC INTERACT that consortia such as ours has the opportunity to further develop our programme of work for the benefit of all stakeholders, including industry and government, but most importantly, the citizens of India.  In regard to the latter, this activity is directly in line with the core aims of the University of Ulster in promoting its excellence and creativity.”

      

For further information, please contact:

Press Office, Department of Communication and Development
Tel: 028 9036 6178
Email: pressoffice@ulster.ac.uk