VISAKHAPATNAM: The Vignan Institute of Information Technology (VIIT) has been conferred with the autonomous status by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and JNTU, Kakinada, with effect from the 2017-18 academic year. The authorities say that the institution will now focus more on introducing more job-oriented technical and professional courses and intensifying the research activities.
“We are going to add some industry-friendly courses to ensure better employability of students. From this academic year, we will include Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, big data and several others.
For the Electronics and Communication and Computer Science Engineering students, these will be included in their curriculum. Whereas for others these will be facilitated as certification courses,” VIIT chairman L Rathnaiah said, adding that skill component for every course will be in focus to make students self-employed.
“We will try to increase research projects funded by government. We are expecting funds of around `9 to `10 crore for the faculty and scholars. We want to encourage PhD scholars too. Merit-cum-means scholarship will also be provided to students every year,” the chairman added.
The institute, which offers various engineering and masters programmes now, is planning to introduce food technology, agriculture technology and bio-informatics from the next academic year.
In 2015, 85 per cent of our students got placements with salary packages ranging between `2.5 lakh and `10 lakh. The average package which students got was `5 lakh per annum, said the chairman.
The Vignan group has set up over 35 premier educational institutes across South India along with Vignan Global Gen School with international standards. Recently, the VIIT has signed MoUs with more than 30 companies like Infosys, BSNL, VCTPL, Indian Navy and TCS. The institute has also collaborated with top Indian institutions like IIT Mumbai and IIT Kharagpur to exchange video lectures through Eklavya remote centre, Robotics and entrepreneurship development.