Inauguration of India-Syria Centre of Excellence for IT

DAMASCUS, SYRIA: The ‘India-Syria Centre of Excellence for Information Technology’ was inaugurated by the Prime Minister of the Syrian Arab Republic H.E. Eng. Mohammad Naji Otri in the presence of Syrian Minister for Communications and Technology H. E. Dr. Imad Sabouni, Ambassador of India to the Syrian Arab Republic, H.E. V. P. Haran, Director General C-DAC Mr.Rajan T Joseph, Deputy Ministers of Telecom, Director General of Telecom, Director General of Postal Department, Director of National Agency of Network Services (NANS), Director of Remote Sensing Organization, Dean of Faculty of Engineering in Damascus University and Director of India-Syria Centre of Excellence for Information Technology Dr. Nabil Hamed.

The Centre is an India-Syrian Joint Collaboration project with contribution from the Government of India and Government of Syria. The Centre has been established in the framework of the MOU signed between the Syrian Ministry of Communications & Technology and Government of India following the decision taken during the state visit of the president of the Syrian Arab Republic H.E. Dr. Bashar Al Assad to India in June 2008.

The Centre will impart training in the field of Information Technology to the Syrians from both Public and Private sectors. The Indian side has provided the hardware, software, courseware and the specialized trainers for the Centre. The infrastructure for the Centre was provided by Syria. The Centre has three classrooms/labs and can train 90 students at a time. About 500-600 students can be trained at the Centre per year. To begin with, courses on Information Security, Software Engineering & Information Management and Advanced Data Centre Operations will be conducted at the Centre.

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), an autonomous scientific society under the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India was the implementing agency for the project in Damascus with the support of the Syrian Government.H.E. Eng. Mohammad Naji Otri, Prime Minister of the Syrian Arab Republic, and H. E. Dr. Imad Sabouni, Syrian Minister for Communications and Technology in discussion with Shri.Rajan T Joseph, Director General, C-DAC during the tour of the inaugurated India-Syria Centre of Excellence for Information Technology’ at Damascus, Syria.