Ahmedabad

The Graduate School of Smart Cities Development of Gujarat Technical University, the one of its kind in the whole of Asia, today singed an MoU with the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT), over a century old New Zealand based educational institute which rose to fame after for redesigning the badly devastated Christchurch city after the 7.5 magnitude earthquake in 2011 there.

The GTU Graduate School is also going to start an e-course on smart cities, another first in the continent, from September 15. The six months (one semester) course would be open for any graduate with 50 percent marks and adequate know how of internet and English language.

Talking to newsmen here today GTU Vice Chancellor Dr. Akshai Aggarwal and Director of the smart city project of the institute Mr. Rajnikant Patel said the agreement was about students/faculties and idea exchange programmes We would learn from them while they have evinced ample interest in our Smart city lab project.

‘The two institutes would share their knowledge in the filed of smart cities while the e-course on smart cities would be open for even the art graduates provided they fulfill other criteria.’ Mr. Patel said.

‘However, the e-course project has nothing to do with the MoU,’ the Project Officer- Media, Sanjay Trivedi later told a news agency.