Microsoft brings its Academia Accelerator programme to India

16th January 2014
Microsoft brings its Academia Accelerator programme to India
Vinod Anantharaman, Head of Microsoft India R&D's Business Management (left) and senior academics, at the launch of the Academia Accelerator programme in Hyderabad January 16 2014

Hyderabad, January 17, 2014 – Microsoft has brought its Academia Accelerator to India -- a programme aimed at building a deep long-term association between industry and academia.
In partnership with the faculty at 10 leading Indian engineering colleges, Microsoft will aim to enhance the Computer Science curriculum in selective areas and foster even greater student-driven innovation and entrepreneurship.
Says Vinod Anantharaman, Head of Business Management, Microsoft India (R&D): “India produces some of the world’s finest engineering talent. Much of this talent get started on their journeys at our top engineering colleges. By adding a layer of cutting-edge industry know-how on top of the existing Computer Science curriculum, the Academia Accelerator program aims to expose students to critically important technology trends and practices earlier, during their formative years, thereby preparing them with vital skills and experiences that will enrich their careers and fuel innovation and impact from India.”
The programme currently has two main components—a series of workshops that span a wide spectrum of topics relevant to the modern-day high technology industry, and a series of student hackathons which give all students at these campuses an opportunity to work collaboratively in team environments to build modern, real-world applications that leverage the latest Microsoft platforms including Mobile and Cloud.
Workshops are tailored to the curriculum at each partner college, based on the needs of the Computer Science faculty and their specific asks, and get delivered by seasoned Microsoft engineers who are domain experts on that particular area. Although primarily designed to be technical in their nature, workshops often include other important considerations such as the business landscape, anticipated trends or promising areas for future research. Topics of recently delivered workshops include Agile Practices in Software Engineering, Smartphone Trends, Cloud Computing, Online Advertising, Big Data and Web Mining.
The hackathon series, delivered under the code.fun.do brand name, are open to all passionate coders at partner college campuses. Hackathons are preceded by fast-paced, hands-on talks and demos that orient students to key concepts needed to build apps for modern platforms such as smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles and the Cloud.