Ahmedabad: The Gujarat government is planning to set up Knowledge Cities, hubs of academia, research, technology and industry, for promoting innovation, on the lines of countries such as South Korea and Taiwan.
"There are two proposals for Knowledge City received by the government with long-term investment commitments," Additional Chief Secretary (Science and Technology) Ravi Saxena said. "Such cities are where you have universities, academic and industrial research laboratories, incubators, and you have the industry," he said.
"Accommodating all of these at the same place is necessary so that people could move from one to another, like a professor could go to industry if he has a patent in his hand, which is possible when he doesn`t have to shift residence or town," he said.
"The concept is on lines of technology parks in Taiwan and a city in South Korea."
Hshinchu Technology park of Taiwan and Gwangju Metropolitan City in South Korea are examples of this model.
Gujarat currently has around 51 universities and over 1,400 institutes of higher education catering to over 7 million students. However, only a few institutes have active tie-ups with international institutes.
In view of this, officials said, the state is going to organise the second edition of International Conference for Academic Institutions (ICAI) as a part of Vibrant Gujarat Summit (VGS) 2013, where MoUs or Letter of Intentions between Gujarat, foreign universities, state industry would be signed.
The first edition of ICAI had seen 33 delegates from 25 universities, representing 9 countries, during which 74 MoUs or LoIs for collaboration between Gujarat universities, foreign universities and industry were signed.
PTI
