Victoria University, Kampala, Uganda has signed scholarly and academic cooperation agreements with six universities and innovation hubs from the Indian state of Gujarat.
The universities are: Marwadi University, Ganpat University, Charotar University of Science and Technology and Sankalchand Patel Univeristy. The Gujarat Student Start-up and Innovation Hub (i-Hub) as well as Swarnim Startup & Innovation University are also cooperating with Victoria University.
The cooperation agreements were signed during the 17th – 18th February 2020 visit of the Mrs. Vibhavariben Dave, the Honorable Minister of State for Education Department in the state government of Gujarat, India to Victoria University.
Mrs. Vibhavariben was accompanied by other officials from the Gujarat Education department that included: Anju Sharma IAS; the Principal Secretary of Education and Paresh Dave; the Joint Director-of technical education.
H.E. Ravi Shankar, the Indian High Commissioner to Uganda and Dr Himanshu Pandya Vice Chancellor at the Indian high commission were also present.
Mr. Rajesh Patel, the Representative of Marwadi University and 10 representatives from the participating universities each signed on behalf of their universities.
In a media interview, soon after the signing, the Victoria University Vice Chancellor, Associate Prof. Krishna N. Sharma said that the collaboration agreements would enable especially Victoria University students, academic and research staff to work with the participating universities to carry out joint innovations, research and resource sharing.
“The MoUs explore opportunities to do joint research, joint publications, organising joint events like conferences, seminars, workshops, symposiums as well as the exchange of staff and students. There will also be special scholarships for VU alumni and students,” he said.
Airtel Africa and SpaceX Announce Strategic Partnership to Launch Starlink Direct to Cell Connectivity Across AfricaThe collaboration with the innovation hubs, among others things will see Victoria University work with their Indian counterparts to organize innovation challenges, hackathons and boot camps involving students , innovators and start –ups mainly in Uganda. It also includes enabling and mentoring the start-ups to develop e-commerce and digital solutions, the organisations of joint incubation programmes and joint efforts to help start-ups from Uganda to scale up in the Indian start-up ecosystem- valued at $11.4 billion in 2019.
The collaboration also includes technical support to start-ups who wish to leverage infrastructure of the i-Hubs to create enhanced value as well as facilitating collaboration with other start-ups and ecosystem stakeholders in Gujarat.
Owned by the Ruparelia Group, Victoria University is a premium University accredited by the National Council of Higher Education and Uganda Nurses and Midwifery Council.
Recently the university entered into a partnership with the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) to launch an Advanced Diploma in Logistics and Transport. Victoria University is the 2nd university besides UMI to run accredited programs from CILT, but is the first to run the Advanced Diploma in Logistics and Transport.
