The University at Buffalo has joined with four U.S. universities, a group of Indian institutions and three international corporations to enhance science and engineering education in India using a new satellite distance-learning network operated by the Indian Space Research Organization.

In Washington this summer, Satish K. Tripathi, UB provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, met with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and signed a memorandum of understanding establishing the Indo-U.S. Inter-University Collaborative Initiative in Higher Education and Research.

The other U.S. universities involved in the collaborative effort are the University of California at Berkeley, University of California at San Diego, Carnegie Mellon University and Cornell University. The Indian university involved in the initiative is Amrita University located in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu.

“UB is partnering with a distinguished group of Indian and U.S. institutions and companies in combining faculty expertise and distance-learning technologies to expand access to higher and technical education throughout India,” says Tripathi.

Under the agreement, faculty from the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences will teach in India for one semester at a time and will be involved in contributing teaching materials to a digital content library that will be created for the Indian students.