Scholarship for women M. Tech students at IISc

Bengaluru: Sony India Software Centre Pvt. Ltd. has established five fellowships in the broad area of Computing Sciences for women M. Tech. students at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) commitment. The initiative aims to encourage women students seeking to pursue careers in the technology sector.

"We are happy to partner with IISc and take the first few small steps towards achieving our goal of empowering women through education. I hope we can grow this partnership and have many more women opting for sciences and this in turn contributes to improving gender diversity in organizations," said Masayuki Toriumi, MD of Sony India Software Centre Pvt. Ltd.

The fellowships will be awarded to students pursuing M. Tech. in the following programmes: Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Computational and Data Science, Computer Science and Engineering, and Electronics and Communication Engineering. The fellowship will include a monthly scholarship for the entire course period, as well as an unrestricted research grant including travel expenses, purchase of laptops and other consumables.

The goal of these fellowships is to encourage more women candidates to pursue higher studies at IISc, especially in the areas of engineering and technology, in order to address the gender inequality in these areas, and increase the number of women students. Women students are admitted to IISc's M. Tech. programmes through a highly competitive process, based on GATE score and/or interviews. Some of the brightest women students and researchers from all over India are admitted into IISc.

Prof. Phaneendra Yalavarthy, Chair of the Office of Development and Alumni Affairs (ODAA), Indian Institute of Science, said, "I am glad that Sony India has chosen to support women candidates in these flagship M. Tech. programmes under CSR. This sponsorship is very timely as this support provided a much needed push for gender equality especially in the higher education space. We are thankful to Sony India for choosing IISc as its partner. I am sure this is only a starting point and we will see many such impactful contributions from Sony India."

The fellowships will be awarded to M. Tech. students starting in the August 2021 academic year.