The Indian High Commissioner to Solomon Islands HE Vijai Kumar and the Minister for Foreign Affairs and External Trade Hon. Jeremiah Manele signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Monday 17, February 2020 to establish a centre of excellence for Information and Communications Technology (ICT) at Solomon Island National University (SINU).
Through the MOU, the government of India will supply the computer hardware, software, resource books, course materials, and related resources and SINU will provide facilities to accommodate the ICT centre. The government of Solomon Islands will facilitate the clarence of the equipment and to deal with the tax and customs duties.
HE Vijai Kumar highlighted that Indian technical experts will be at SINU to install the equipment and his government will fund two IT experts to run the centre and deliver training for two years. The Indian government will also send six Solomon Islanders to India to undertake six months Master program in advanced IT courses.
Hon. Jeremiah Manele said the government and people of Solomon Islands are appreciative of India’s generosity and gift and we value the friendship we’ve established since 1987. “The vision is to create a pool of knowledge workers and generate employment opportunities by producing world-class IT professionals to attract investment into the Solomon Islands and generate revenues through software export,” said the Foreign Affairs Minister.
Hon. Manele highlighted that Solomon Islanders will be so lucky with this initiative since India is amongst the World’s IT Superpowers.
Vice-Chancellor Dr. Ganesh Chand thanked the two governments for the hard-work leading towards the signing of the MOU and to choose SINU as the host for the Centre of Excellence. The VC assured the two governments that SINU will do its best to keep the name and fame of the centre. SINU will abide by all the terms and conditions that the respective governments have agreed to.
Dr. Chand also highlighted that this year, SINU started the School of Sciences of which the department of Computing Studies is one of the core components and therefore the signing of the MOU is timely to the SINU 2020 plan.