VIT and MIT team up to find solutions to healthcare problems

The faculty and students of VIT University, Vellore, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, have come together to find solutions to healthcare problems in India. The team is working towards pushing the boundaries of teaching, learning and collaborative research.

VIT has teamed with the objective of using computer, Imaging and communication technologies to develop tools and systems that will help medical professionals to diagnose and treat patients, especially those in the rural settings. Initiated more than two years ago, the VIT-MIT partnership has evolved to bring together a group of about 125 B. Tech students and a dozen VIT faculty to attend a week-long 'Health Informatics' training programme. Popularly known in military as 'the boot camp' for its intensity, the programme will aid in the development of Android-based applications to support diagnosis of illness.

As a follow-up to the boot camp, which was conducted by Professors Thomas Brennan and Eric Winkler of MIT, VIT students have started working on a set of 14 different projects.

Expected to work for three weeks on the projects, these students will join a team of MIT students in mid-January 2014 to learn the advanced concepts in programming and computer applications, and start their work on technology development and deployment.

The VIT-MIT common classes will be conducted by a team of faculty from MIT's Health Sciences and Technology and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. At the end of the eight-week course, teams comprising VIT and MIT students will undertake field work in India to develop concepts, tools and systems that will support medical professionals with information and the means to diagnose and treat patients.

The VIT students will be granted formal course credit towards their B. Tech degree. As the project evolves to the next stage, a team of VIT Students will spend part of their next summer at MIT and continue with their development work. The faculty members involved in the joint project will undertake collaborative research projects and support undergraduate and graduate students. As a follow-up, an advanced course in Health Sciences and Information Technology will be offered to VIT students during the next academic year.

Dr G Viswanathan, VIT Chancellor, thanked the MIT team and congratulated the winners of the student projects.

Related links:

Vellore Institute of Technology

VIT, Chennai

VIT Business School