The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) signed two separate Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) with Harcourt Butler Technical University (HBTU), Kanpur and Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur on Monday.

The MoU with HBTU involves cooperation and development of international level standards in the field of paint, soap, detergent, oil, plastic, fragrance and food technology. The MoU was signed by Surina Rajan, director general, BIS, and N B Singh, vice chancellor, HBTU.

Rajan stated that creating synergy among premier educational institutions with the involvement of young minds in the area of standardisation process would highly benefit the country. Registrar Manoj Shukla, dean and various other faculty members along with Dr R K Bajaj, deputy director general, BIS were also present during the programme.

The partnership with IIT Kanpur will help in concurrently establishing standards on important subjects like block chain applications of e-governance developed by IIT. It will also provide support of their technical expertise for the formulation of standards in the field of cyber security, IoT, artificial intelligence (AI) and flexible electronics. As per the MoU, a joint initiative is underway for standardisation to find a place in education curriculum and offering short-term courses to businesses as well.

Both organisations, HBTU and IIT-K agreed for taking up R&D projects wherever required along with the exchange of information on research and educational programmes. BIS will provide inputs on topic such as ‘Standardisation and Conformity Assessment’ that will be incorporated in the academics.

The MoU with IIT, Kanpur was signed by director Abhay Karandikar and Rajan. S Ganesh, dean, Research and Development and other senior faculty members of IIT Kanpur attended the progamme.