About Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham

The Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham is a dream cometrue, a dream nursed by Mata Amritanandamayi tohave a centre of excellence in learning for the benefitof all. The dream became a reality in 1994 when theSchool of Engineering was opened in an obscurevillage, Ettimadai, at the foothills Bouluvanpattyranges of Western Ghats in the Coimbatore Districtof Tamil Nadu. It was indeed a modest beginningwith just 120 students and 13 faculty members. Inless than two decades, Amrita Viswa Vidyapeethamhas blossomed into a multi-disciplinary, multi-campus centre that offers over 150 undergraduate,postgraduate and doctoral programmes inEngineering, Business, Medicine, Dentistry,Pharmacy, Nursing, Journalism, Biotechnology,Information Technology, Arts and Sciences, HealthSciences, Education, Microbiology, HospitalManagement, Visual Media Studies, Communication,Social Work and Nanosciences and Ayurveda.Satguru Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi (AMMA),one of the foremost humanitarian leaders in the worldtoday, is the Chancellor of the University.

Presently, the Amrita Viswa Vidyapeetham Universityspread over five campuses in three different States-Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka - has a populationof around 16,000, a faculty strength of 2000 andconducting over 150 UG, PG and Doctoralprogrammes. Presently, there are 300 Ph.D/ DMholders as faculty in the University. The staff-studentratio in the University at about 1:8 is one of the bestprevailing in the country, especially in privateuniversities . The University today is having a totalland area of about 900 acres and a built-up space ofabout 8million square feet

Recognition, local and international came in anunending flow. Quite deservedly Amrita ViswaVidyapeetham was conferred the “University” statusunder ‘Section 3 of UGC Act 1956’ by theGovernment of India in 2003. The University wasalso granted ‘A’ grade by the National Assessmentand Accreditation Council. It has also been rankedin the Ivy league of Indian Universities along withsuch famous institutions as the Indian Institute ofScience, Bangalore and the Tata Institute ofFundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. In a recentreview of Deemed Universities by a high-powercommittee of reputed academicians, populary knownas the Tandon Committee, set up by the Ministry ofHuman Resources Develpoment, Amrita ViswaVidyapeetham was placed in Category1. In TamilNadu, besides Amrita, only the Chennai MathmaticalInstitute, a Deemed University, was given thisrecognition. For the country as a whole only 11private universities presently enjoy this privilege.

Based on the evaluation of all the campuses andprogrammes by a peer review committee, theUniversity has been accredited by NationalAssessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC)with ‘A’ grade.

Research is a very significant activity in ouruniversity. Many centres of excellence have beenstarted in cutting-edge areas like Nanosciences,Biomedical Engineering, Environmental Sciences,Molecular Medicine, Wireless Sensor Networks,Computational Engineering & Networking, CyberSecurity, Biostatistics, Cancer etc with the supportof major national laboratories, industry leaders and

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agencies like TIFAC, DST, ICMR, ISRO, DRDO, DBT,DIT, DRDO, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Media LabAsia, Infosys, MDS Pharma, Biocon etc. AMRITAis also a partner in the Ministry of Human ResourceDevelopment’s National Mission for Education usingICT for various projects in haptics, virtual labs,Educational Resource Planning and interactivee-learning systems. The faculty of AMRITA haspublished more than 200 books and 2000 papers inreputed international and national journals in thepast eight years. AMRITA has attracted grants fromvarious Governmental and private funding agenciesto the tune of more than Rs. 100 crores in the pasteight years. AMRITA has bagged or filed forty majorpatents and inventions in the past few years whichinclude Adaptive and Automatic Insulin Pump,Wireless Telematics, Virtual Private Network (VPN),Amrita Hospital Information System (AHIS) etc.Plans are afoot to manufacture this Insulin Pumpcommercially, which will be affordable for the poorat one third of the cost of similar such devices. 2patents have been granted.

The 1450-bed super-specialty hospital, AmritaInstitute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) attached tothe Amrita School of Medicine at the Health Sciencescampus in Kochi, is a unique, state-of-the-artinstitution offering subsidized and free treatment ofover Rs. 25 crores per year, to poor and needypatients. AIMS’ extensive infrastructure comprises60 departments, 22 modern operating theatres, 210Well-equipped Intensive Care beds, a referencediagnostic clinical laboratory, including advancedMolecular Biology and Cytogenetics Labs, a state-of-the-art Diagnostic Imaging Centre and Research

Facility. Patient care is enhanced by a fullycomputerized and networked Hospital InformationSystem and a fully digitized Radiology Department.Annual patient turnover exceeds 450,000 outpatientsand nearly 40,000 inpatients. The hospital has alsosecured NABH and NABL accreditations. AMRITAhospital is the first university teaching hospital inIndia to secure NABH accreditation.

All the students of Amrita University have ampleopportunities for orientation in Yoga, Meditation andCultural Education. Integrated Amrita Meditation(IAM) technique helps them achieve holisticdevelopment of mind and body. The students havealso demonstrated their social commitment andcommunity engagement by participating in disasterrelief and rehabilitation activities after the GujaratEarthquake in 2001; Tsunami relief operations in TamilNadu and Kerala in 2005-2006, flood relief operationsin Bihar in 2009 and Karnataka in 2010.

Eminent personalities who have addressed theconvocation of AMRITA include Nobel Laureates,Dr. Martin Chalfie and Dr. Leland Hartwell; Dr.Gururaj Deshpande, Co-Chair of the US President’sNational Innovation Council; Dr. CNR Rao, eminentchemist and former director of Indian Institute ofScience; Dr. G. Madhavan Nair, former chairman ofIndian Space Research Organization (ISRO); Mr. KrisGopalakrishnan, Co-Founder of Infosys; Dr. T.Ramasami, Secretary, Department of Science andTechnology of Government of India (GOI) and Mr.R. Chandrashekhar, Secretary, Ministry ofInformation Technology of GOI. The most recentconvocation in 2011 saw 4298 candidates graduateincluding 11 Ph.Ds.

Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore

vAmrita School of Business, Coimbatore

vAmrita School of Ayurveda, Amritapuri

vAmrita School of Arts & Sciences, Amritapuri

vAmrita School of Engineering, Amritapuri

vAmrita School of Biotechnology, Amritapuri

vAmrita School of Arts & Sciences, Kochi

vAmrita School of Medicine, Kochi

vAmrita College of Nursing, Kochi

Amrita School of Dentistry, Kochi

Amrita School of Pharmacy, Kochi

Amrita School of Engineering, Bangalore

Amrita School of Arts and Sciences, Mysore

Amrita School of Education, Mysore

In addition to these schools, the University alsoruns programmes in Communication, BusinessManagement, Social Work and Nanosciences,which are not attached to any Schools.

The University consists of the following Schools

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Centres of Excellence and Research

Amrita Centre for Wireless Networks andApplications (WNA) - Known for its successfulcompletion of the Indo-European WINSOC Project,Amrita WNA is recognized worldwide today for itsdeployment of the first-ever wireless sensor networksystem for predicting landslides. The system useswireless sensor technology to provide advancewarning of an impending landslide disaster,facilitating evacuation and disaster management.The Government of India has shown interest todeploy this system in all landslide prone areasincluding the Himalayas and the Konkan Region.Amrita WNA Centre offers a Masters Degree Programin Wireless Networks and Applications and Ph. DProgram in Computer Science and Engineering, EarthSciences (Landslides), Disaster Management,Education. The centre is pursuing various projectsof international and national importance withagencies like Departments of Science andTechnology (DST), and Department of InformationTechnology (DIT) of government of India and Indo-German & Indo-Brazil collaborative programmes inwireless networks.

Amrita - Technology Information Forecasting andAssessment Council (TIFAC) Centre for Relevanceand Excellence (CORE) in Cyber Security with IBM,Hewlett Packard India and Society for ElectronicTransactions and Security (SETS) as some of thecorporate sponsors. The centre has several researchprojects in Cyber Security, Intrusion detectionsystems and stream ciphers with agencies like ISRO,

DRDO, ADRIN, NTRO and European Union. Thecentre is also running an M.Tech programme in CyberSecurity.

Centre for Computational Engineering andNetworking (CEN) is actively engaged in researchactivities in natural language processing, softwareradio, wireless sensor networks, advanced signalprocessing techniques like wavelets, computationalchemistry and drug design etc with the Ministries ofInformation Technology and HRD of Government ofIndia, ISRO, NPOL etc. The centre is also runningM.Tech programmes in Computational Engineering& Networking and Remote Sensing & WirelessSensor Networks.

Centre for E-learning - AMRITA has developed aunique E-learning system, A-VIEW, “Amrita VirtualInteractive E-Learning World”, which is cutting-edgevideo conferencing software, customized explicitlyfor Universities. Along with various projects invirtual labs, haptics, natural language processing,this project is under the Indian government’s NationalMission for Education using ICT.

Amrita Centre for Digital Health and Telemedicine -Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, the super-specialty hospital of the university is connected toclinics and hospitals in remote areas all over India,making it one of the largest 24/7 telemedicinenetworks in the country. This facility is reaching morethan 40 remote centres in India and Africa.

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Centre for Nanosciences and Molecular Medicine -India’s first Nanobio center, this centre is recognizedtoday as a leader in Nanotechnology, Molecularmedicine and Solar Cell research as well aseducation. The Centre also hosts a Nano Solar Centrefor Excellence which focuses on innovative productdevelopment in photovoltaics and storage devicesusing nanomaterials. Another thrust is to developnano-technology in biomedical implants.

Centre for Biotechnology - Government of Indiaapproved this centre as TIFAC CORE in BiomedicalTechnology. This centre, which is developing a low-cost Insulin pump, has extensive industryparticipation from MDS Pharma, Hewlett PackardIndia and Mascon Global.

Centre for Environmental Studies - The centre isengaged in creating awareness among peopleregarding equitable use of natural resources andconserving and nurturing biological diversity. Treeplanting, soil & water conservation, organic farming,vermin composting, recycling of effluent waterthrough bioremediation, conservation ofbiodiversity especially medicinal plants and organicfarming are some of the activities. The centre haslandscaped the Ettimadai campus with formal,informal, Japanese and rockery styles.

Amrita Technology Business Incubator (TBI)supported by DST for grooming young and dynamicentrepreneurs.

Amrita Research Labs (ARL) is a research centreconsisting of a number of research groups workingon projects in areas like cloud computing, wirelesstelematics, cyber security, embedded systems, VLSIetc

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Highlights of the University

Established on 13 January 2003

Number of campuses 5 (Amritapuri, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Kochiand Mysore) with 14 schools in disciplines likemedicine, biotechnology, engineering, business,arts & sciences, ayurveda, social work,communication etc

Total land area of the University 900 Acres

Total built-up space in the University 8 million square feet (Largest among PrivateUniversities in India)

Students population of the University 16,000

Teaching staff strength of the University 2,000

Non-Teaching staff strength of the 2,500University

Accreditation Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham has been gradedin the ‘A’ category by the Ministry of HumanResource Development Deemed UniversityReview Committee. AMRITA is placed in theivy-league of Indian universities along with IISc,TIFR, NIMHANS, BITS etc

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham has beenaccredited with ‘A’ grade by NAAC, thestatutory quality assurance agency of theGovernment of India. This is the best possiblegrade and all campuses and programmes wereevaluated

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Healthcare campus has been accredited withISO 9002-2000, NABH and NABL

AMRITA is the only University TeachingHospital in India to secure NABH accreditation.

Total number of faculty who possess 300 (The largest number of Ph.D holders in thePh.D/DM private sector)

Faculty-student ratio of the University 1 : 8 (It is much above the national norms)

Number of programmes run in 150the University

Number of Centres of Excellence 20 (2 TIFAC centres in Biotechnology & CyberSecurity)

Research output by our faculty in the 200 books and 2000 publications in reputedlast eight years international and national journals

Research grants received by the Rs.100 crores·University from various agencies Partner in various national initiatives likeduring the past eighth years Ministry of Human Resource Development’s

National Mission for Education using ICT inareas like haptics, virtual labs, EducationalResource Planning and interactive e-learningsystems

Super Speciality Hospital Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi1450 bed Super-speciality hospital

25 Operating Theatres

210 Intensive Care Beds

60 Departments and Specialities

Digitized Radiology Department

Reference diagnostic clinical laboratoryincluding advanced Molecular Biology andCytogenetics Labs

State-of-the-art Diagnostic Imaging Centre

Annual patient turnover exceeds 450,000outpatients and nearly 40,000 inpatients

Fully computerized and networked HospitalInformation System which is being used bygovernment of Maharashtra for all theirgovernment hospitals and medical colleges

Telemedicine service to various remote locationsin India and Africa

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Indo-US Tie-up Extensive tie-ups with over 20 US universitiesfor research, centres of excellence, cross-continental projects, distinguished lectures,collaborative programmes, faculty, student andresearch scholar exchange, internships etc

Some of the US Universities involved are amongthe best in the world like Berkeley, Maryland,Princeton, Purdue, Harvard etc

Over 500 distinguished lectures telecast throughEDUSAT to 40 Indian Universities

Twinning programme with State University ofNew York (SUNY) at Buffalo

Indo-European Union Tie-up Erasmus Mundus exchange programme forFaculty, Research Scholar & Student exchange ·100 faculty, researchers and students deputed tovarious universities in England, Ireland, Italy,Sweden, Finland, Bulgaria etc.

Developed India’s first wireless sensor shield forlandslide and natural disaster detection as part ofEU collaboration

Twinning programmes with various universitieslike Vrije University, Amsterdam

Placement 100% for engineering and business programmesover the last several years

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International Alliancesof AMRITA University

Indo-US Initiatives

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed in2005 between AMRITA and various US Universities,some of which are ranked among the best universitiesin the world, like Harvard, Purdue, State Universityof New York (SUNY) at Buffalo, Yale, Princeton,Columbia, Berkeley, Michigan, Maryland, Universityof California etc. for faculty and student exchange,collaborative programmes, research and cross-continental projects, centres of excellence andbroadcast of distinguished lectures using EDUSATto around 75 institutions and universities in thecountry. In the last five years of this tie-up, therehave been 30 full-fledged courses, 7 researchprojects, numerous short-term courses and over 500distinguished visitors.

The then President of India, Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalamlaunched the Indo-US Inter-University CollaborativeNetwork for Higher Education and Research in NewDelhi on 8 December, 2005. Earlier, on 20 July, 2005,five U.S. Universities including the University ofCalifornia, campuses at Berkeley and San Diego,Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University andState University of New York at Buffalo had inked

the agreement during the visit of the Honorable PrimeMinister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh toWashington DC.

Indo-European Initiatives

AMRITA has completed a major EuropeanCommission funded project which resulted in thedevelopment of India’s first Wireless Sensor Networksystem for landslide detection. AMRITA also hasjoint research projects, collaborative programmesand tie-ups with University of Milan, University ofTwente, Technical University of Munich, Universityof Groningen, Uppsala University etc. Extensivefaculty and student exchange programmes throughErasmus Mundus programme of the EuropeanCommission is also underway with over 100 facultyand students from AMRITA deputed to variousEuropean universities in United Kingdom, Ireland,Italy, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Bulgaria andNetherlands for academic and research assignmentsin the last two years.

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List of Universities in USA and Europewith whom AMRITA has linkages and tie-ups

Sl. No Name of Foreign University Nature of Linkage, duration and outcome

1 Harvard University

2 Yale University

3 Princeton University

4 Georgia Institute of Technology

5 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

6 Purdue University

7 University of California, Los Angeles

8 University of Texas at Austin

9 University of Michigan

10 University of Washington

11 University of Massachusetts at Amherst

12 University of Wisconsin-Madison

13 The University of North Dakota

14 University of Maryland

15 University of California, Santa Cruz

16 The University of California at Berkeley

17 The University of California at San Diego

18 Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

19 Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh

20 Calit2: California Institute for Telecommunications & Information Technology

21 CITRIS: Center for Information TechnologyResearch in the Interest of Society

22 State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo

23 Uppsala University, Sweden

24 Technical University of Berlin, Germany Research and exchange programme in Cyber Security

25 Technical University of Munich, Germany

26 University of Trento, Italy Student exchange programmes

27 University of Groningen, Netherlands Student exchange programmes

28 University of Milano, Italy Joint Project in robotics

29 Columbia University, New York Memoranda of Understanding for Indo-US InterUniversity Collaborative Initiative in HigherEducation and Research

Memoranda of Understanding for Indo-USInter University Collaborative Initiative inHigher Education and Research. This is a broadMoU in all areas and disciplines. This wassigned in 2005. It is an ongoing arrangementwith

various activities pursued include facultyexchange, student exchange, doctoral studentexchange, cross-continental projects, centresof excellence, collaborative programmes, visitof distinguished professors, telecast of lecturesover EDUSAT etc. 500 distinguished visitorsfrom premier US universities have visited Indiaand their lectures have been telecast. Morethan 30 full-fledged courses have been takenand these have been telecast to over 50 Indianuniversities and colleges. Some of thesecourses are being offered by eminent facultye.g. faculty members from University ofCalifornia, Berkeley and University of Marylandare offering courses for PG programmes andresearch scholars through video-conferencing.

One faculty has completed his Ph.D. Two ofthem are working on their Ph.D. 2 collaborativePost Graduate programmes have alsocommenced.

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30 European Commission Indo-European initiative in faculty and studentexchange under Erasmus Mundus Programme

31 Sofia University, Bulgaria Faculty, Student, Research Scholar exchange under32 York University, United Kingdom the project, “Eureca” of the Erasmus Mundus33 Vrije University, Netherlands External Cooperation Window of the European34 University La Aquila, Italy commission. 50 faculty and students have been35 University of Limerick, Ireland deputed to these universities in 2009-2010. Many of36 Malardalen University, Sweden them gained international exposure in terms of doing37 Uppsala University, Sweden projects, courses and internships. Some of them have38 University of Paderborn, Germany also secured admission for PG programmes2 students39 University of Turku, Finland from Sweden have come to AMRITA for taking

various courses

40 TKK, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Faculty, Student, Research Scholar exchange under41 University of Turin, Italy the project, “India for EU” of the Erasmus Mundus42 Aachen University, Germany External Cooperation Window of the European43 University of Milan, Italy commission. 6 faculty and 28 students are being44 University of Bologna, Italy deputed to these universities during the year 2010-45 University of Grenoble, France 2011. 3 students and research scholars from France46 University of Trento, Italy and Italy have come to AMRITA for taking various47 Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, Sweden courses

48 Radboud University, Netherlands

49 University of New Mexico

50 University of Montpellier, France Faculty, Student and Research Scholar exchange

51 Doshisha University, Japan

52 Deakin University, Australia

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With strong support from both industry and government, Amrita University has established several centres of excellence.Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham is also actively pursuing research, development and extension projects of national importancewith major national laboratories, industry leaders and agencies like

Indian Government Agencies andLaboratories

Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD)

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)

Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR)

Department of Science and Technology (DST)

Department of Biotechnology (DBT)

Technology Information, Forecasting and AssessmentCouncil (TIFAC), DST

Science and Engineering Council (SERC), DST

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

Ministry of Information Technology

Media Lab Asia

Defence Research and Development Organization(DRDO)

Department of Indian System of Medicine andHomeopathy

Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC)

Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences (BRNS)

Ministry of Environment and Forests

National Medicinal Plants Board

National Technical Research Organization (NTRO)

Society for Electronic Transaction Security (SETS)

Electronics and Radar Development Establishment,(LRDE), DRDO

National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL)

Research Activities/Thrust Areas of Research

All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)

Central Council for Research in Ayurveda, Siddha andHomeopathy (AYUSH)

Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB)

Kerala State Council for Science and Technology

Bharat Electronics

Shri Chitra Thirunal Institute of Medical Sciences

DST-Kerala

IndustryMicrosoft

Oracle

Qualcomm

Cisco

Intel

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

Infosys

Konkan Railways

Cognizant

Hewlett Packard India

Cadence Design Systems

MDS Pharma

Magma Design and Automation

Mascon Global

U Tec Corporation

Johnson and Johnson1

PfizerWockhardEli LillyGlaxo Smith KlineBioconTorrentTata ElxsiNovo NordiskBoehringerSAPPricolSanofi AventisBoston Scientific Group and several other pharmacompanies

Other ProjectsHapticsWireless Sensor NetworksERP systems for academic institutionsTelemedicineHospital Information SystemsDigital HealthWireless sensor networks for landslide detectionBiostatisticsMolecular MedicineOncology, NeurologyPediatric CardiologyMedical InformaticsEducational technologiesNatural Language ProcessingComputational chemistryRheumatic Fever and Heart Diseases

Stem CellsCytogenicsHead and Neck ResearchInsulin PumpBiotechnologyVLSIMicroelectronicsPolymer ProcessingCyber securityNanobiomedical TechnologyWaveletsCyber SecurityCryptographyPolymer and Nanocomposite technologyNanosurface bio-engineeringNext generation intelligent transportation SystemsRemote SensingE-learningImage ProcessingTelematicsWireless technologiesDatabase technologyVideo-conferencingWelding technologySupport Vector MachinesPlagiarism DetectionAyurvedaNaturopathySensors

X-ray digitizer

Other ActivitiesAmrita also hosts the one of the largest satellite E-learningand Telemedicine networks in India.

Amrita has secured projects worth Rs. 100 crores fromvarious agencies in the last eight years. Amrita has alsoinvested over Rs. 75 crores for research promotion andbuilding of research facilities and centres.

Amrita faculty has published 200 books and over 2000publications in reputed international and national journalsin the last eight years.

Virtual CampusAmrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham has the unique distinction ofbeing the nation’s first of its kind - fully interactive, multi-disciplinary, multi-media, virtual campus withoutgeographical limitations linking all its campuses. The satellitenetwork for education and research that links all thecampuses of the university has facilitated leading expertsto have academic interaction Live from a single Centre tostudents, academicians and researchers at other campuses,done through state-of-the-art e-learning studios in allcampuses. These studios are equipped with 130 seats forclassroom instruction, 7 days a week using satellite linkprovided by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

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