IIT-M to launch course in Virtual Reality with Japanese collaboration

Chennai: An advanced diploma programme in virtual reality would be launched in association with a Japanese research firm offering niche courses in media and emerging technologies, Indian Institute of Technology Madras said here on Thursday.

The course, to be offered in both online and offline modes, would be open for anyone with an engineering background including students currently enrolled in engineering degrees anywhere in the counrtry, an IIT release said here. The applications would be available from November 2021 and the first batch shall commence from January 2022. "The course will have an annual intake of 50 students." An MoU on this collaborative initiative was signed recently between IIT Madras and Monolith Research And Training Labs, an associate company of Monolith.Asia, a leading Japanese media communication technology company, the release said adding the partner firm provides niche courses in the media and emerging technologies. Prof M Manivannan, Department of Applied Mechanics, IIT Madras, said, "Virtual Reality is inherently a practical and an interdisciplinary course. Offering such an experiential and interdisciplinary course online is quite challenging. Both IIT Madras and Monolith have taken this as a challenge to offer this course for the first time in India." Virtual reality is a powerful technology in which the human senses are artificially stimulated. Using computer programs, VR technology allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment to experience, feel and touch the images of past, present, and the future. (PTI)