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Infosys invests $1.8 Mn for R&D efforts in Australia
By siliconindia
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Tuesday, 08 July 2008, 01:02 IST
Bangalore: Infosys, one of the India's biggest IT firms, has invested in the future of Australia's IT services industry, committing up to $1.8 million in cash and services to the newly formed Smart Services Cooperative Research Center (CRC).
The program, launched on July 3 by Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, will bring together the best technology minds from the industry, six Australian universities and Government to develop an ambitious R&D program aimed at creating intellectual property (IP) of value to Australia's services market - with initial demonstrators planned for the finance, media and government sectors.
Over the course of the program, this IP will be engineered and commercialized by CRC participants resulting in new technology products and services that will increase the competitiveness of Australia's IT industry and make the services market more innovative.
As the only global IT services company involved in the program, Infosys is spearheading the Smart Service CRC from a technology perspective alongside SAP, with industry heavyweights including Telstra, Fairfax Digital and Suncorp-Metway involved in setting the research agenda. Researchers from across the country will also contribute to the R&D and IP creation.
Gary Ebeyan, Chief Executive Officer of Infosys Australia, said, "The good part of the Smart Services CRC is that we get to work with the best minds not only from the academia but also the private sector - some of whom are our clients. With these companies actively setting the research agenda, our clients as well as the IT industry would be able to reap long-term benefits of this IP development."
Infosys' participation in Smart Services CRC is via a joint venture between its Australian subsidiary (Infosys Australia) and SETLabs, the company's research group, based in India.
As part of the collaboration, Infosys Australia and Infosys' SETLabs will initially focus on three research projects exploring business process innovation and service orientated architecture (SOA). The Smart Services CRC will also focus on producing graduates with the skills required to alleviate the industry's skills shortage through its close association with Australia's leading universities.
