Ambassador Nancy J. Powell’s Remarks at the PanIIT Conference

Kolkata | December 7, 2012

Thank you for that kind introduction.  It’s a real pleasure to speak to you today.  I’m coming back to Kolkata, to this auditorium that I remember from my days as the Consul General here, and can honestly say that Kolkata provides a glimpse into India’s transformation.  From Kolkata in the early 90s to today, growth and progress are evident:  Rajarhat, Salt Lake City, the expansion of infrastructure, new buildings and high tech companies – all signify change and transformation in the City of Joy. 

U.S. companies like Cognizant, IBM, Foster Wheeler, Acclaris, Lexmark, Genpact, just to name a few, have a strong presence here, employing tens of thousands in high skill, high technology jobs in Kolkata and West Bengal.  Companies like Caterpillar and Joy Mining, who participated in the International Mining and Machinery Exhibition this week, are providing high-end, high value U.S. technology to the mining and manufacturing sector.  These are but a few examples of U.S. companies operating in Kolkata and West Bengal and helping to transform the landscape of this region.  Of course many challenges remain, and I know there are debates and discussions about the scope and pace of development, but transformation is evident, particularly to someone with a long time horizon for perspective. 

For more than 60 years, scientists, engineers, and technical experts from India and the United States have worked side-by-side to address critical development challenges in food production, climate variability, health, education, and energy in India. 

Although India’s S&T establishment has made enormous progress in the last few decades, further collaboration is needed.  To jointly address this issue, the United States set aside 675 million rupees ($15 million) to fund an Endowment for Joint Research and Development, Innovation, Entrepreneurial and Commercial Activities in Science and Technology, otherwise known as the U.S.-India S&T Endowment.  India agreed to set aside money annually to match the interest from this fund.  This fund was inaugurated at the June 2010 Joint Commission Meeting (JCM) in Washington DC and will be overseen by a joint Board composed of nine members from each country.

Closer to home for you IITans, the United States also contributed directly to the establishment of IIT’s.  A half-century ago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT – organized and led the Kanpur Indo-American Program (KIAP), funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and including experts from other U.S. academic institutions, to help establish IIT/Kanpur.   More than 100 U.S. faculty members served at IIT/Kanpur during its formative decade.

Education is also an important part of any discussion on a society’s transformation, sustainability, and development, particularly in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics or “STEM.”  In both the United States and India a key focus is on skills development.  The United States is training workers to provide workers with the skills needed to complete globally and in new fields.  Much of that training is done by community colleges.  These institutions are very closely tied to community needs.  Working with local industry they have been able to train workers with immediately applicable skills.

India has recognized a need for such training – without it the huge youth dividend could go unrealized – and is planning to work with the American community college system to establish a similar system here to meet the huge, unmet demand of Indian students for higher education that will allow them to succeed in India’s growing economy.

At the summer 2012 Higher Education Summit, Secretary Hillary Clinton emphasized that the U.S. government supports these plans to bring community college education to India.  She was particularly passionate  in her belief that American community colleges have been critically important to U.S. economic success, confiding that while world-class education institutions like the Ivy League universities or India’s own IIT’s are important, there is perhaps an even more important role for community colleges to play:  “We have many jobs that go unfilled because of the lack of linkage between the skills needed in the jobs [market] and the training and education of the workforce.” 

We enthusiastically support India’s interest in exploring the community college model, and have pledged to work with India as it sets up its own community colleges, creating partnerships between the private sector, educational institutions, and the state governments.  We believe this approach can develop needed skills to maximize employment opportunities for Indian graduates.

It is clear that information technology is beginning radically to change the field of education.  It is something we have to be ready for, and also an area where Indians and Americans can share their strengths.  A few weeks ago, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching named Autar Kaw, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of South Florida, a “2012 Professor of the Year.”  He was lauded for his innovative work in using technology and social media to reach tens of thousands of students around the world studying to be engineers.  He started exploring the use of technology to reach students long before anybody talked of online learning or Massive Online Open Courses that are now in the limelight.  Kaw is the product both of Indian education (BITS, Pilani) and American learning (Clemson University). 

It is clear that the jobs of the future, especially in critical-needs areas like science, technology, engineering and math, will go to the smartest job applicants, no matter what country they come from.  China is doing a particularly good job in preparing their young people for the global marketplace.  It is already graduating over 1 million college graduates a year in the areas of science, technology, and mathematics, while India graduates about half that number, and the United States fewer than half.  Both the United States and India need to do a better job.  This is why the IITs are so important, and why the United States Government is eager to promote cooperation between Indian and U.S. institutions of higher education. 

We all need to foster global skills and international experiences in our young people.  The United States warmly welcomes Indian students into its colleges and universities.  During the 2011-2012 academic year over 100,000 Indian students studied in the U.S.  India is second only to China in terms of international student population at U.S. higher education institutions.  We are making efforts to bolster this number by meeting with universities and colleges in both countries to encourage partnerships, and shared degree programs.  Additionally, we are actively encouraging more American students to study and explore India through a new initiative called Passport to India.  We believe the exchange of ideas and experiences broadens everyone’s horizons.  This leads to collaboration and the development of human capital in both countries.

But India and the United States both recognize that sustained educational exchanges are key, and that’s why we have placed such an emphasis on the U.S. India Higher Education Dialogue.  One of the products of the Dialogue is the Obama-Singh Knowledge Initiative for the 21st Century, through which we are funding partnerships between institutions in our two nations.  Last June, the first eight partnerships were announced.  We expect to announce more every spring for the next four years.

IITs and IIT graduates have excelled and brought about transformational changes in all of the fields discussed above, and expanding educational institutions of this caliber is essential to shaping India and its future.  “The IITs probably are the hardest school in the world to get into, to the best of my knowledge," according to Vinod Khosla, who got into IIT Delhi about 30 years ago, and I’m sure all of you in the audience know this to be true.  The impact of graduates such as Khosla, who moved to the U.S. after he graduated and co-founded Sun Microsystems, also play a critical role in the evolution of the India-U.S. relationship.  Now one of Silicon Valley's most recognized venture capitalists, Khosla is just one of thousands of IIT graduates who have succeeded in the U.S.  As he said on an episode of the CBS news series 60 Minutes, "Microsoft, Intel, PCs, Sun Microsystems -- you name it, I can't imagine a major area where Indian IIT engineers haven't played a leading role."

Going forward, I would encourage IIT graduates to continue to engage with us in areas beyond business and technology, working with U.S. counterparts to address critical development issues affecting the globe.  The Millennium Alliance, for example, is a new innovation platform to support and scale development innovations across a variety of development sectors.  Your funding ideas on this and other new platforms under design are most welcome. The United States applauds and thanks the IITs for the intellectual and technical rigor that exists than among IIT alumni and looks forwards to even greater productive collaborations in the future.