Category Archives: News

California Office of Traffic Safety Awards dollar1 Million Grant to the UC Irvine School of Medicine for Youth Thriving in Life Transitions with Transportation Program

Jan. 9, 2025 — UC Irvine School of Medicine announced today that it has received a $1 million grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) to support its Youth Thriving in Life Transitions with Transportation Program. The program, working in the heart of Santa Ana, California, will promote safe driver education and practices for Latino youth and emphasize the critical role of safe transportation in their health, education and employment as they move into young adulthood. The program will bring together unique collaborations between Santa Ana communities and UC Irvine transportation safety and science partners. The grant program runs through September 2025.

“We are excited to receive this grant, which will allow us to significantly expand young driver safety partnerships and prevention activities for Latino youth,” said Dr. Federico Vaca, professor and executive vice chair of emergency medicine at UC Irvine’s School of Medicine. “By focusing on young driver safety with a lifespan perspective, namely health, education and employment, we aim to help reduce crashes, prevent injuries and expand future opportunities for our youth. We’re working hard toward guiding youth into an early adulthood where they can be safe and flourish.”

Grant funds will support various activities focused on young driver safety, behavior and instruction, including:

• Develop and implement a novel curriculum focused on the “how” and “why” of Youth Thriving in Life Transitions with Transportation.
• Leverage new traffic safety educational exposure and experience among youth to enhance their driver safety knowledge and behavior.
• Provide community and school education presentations and participation in community partnership events.
• A professional drivers’ training course that further exposes and educates youth to safe driving behaviors.
• Youth- and parent-focused messaging about transportation safety and transportation science regarding health, education and employment.

 “The Office of Traffic Safety is proud to support programs that empower young drivers with the knowledge and skills to make safe choices on the road,” OTS Acting Director Jessica Chan said. “This partnership highlights the importance of addressing the unique challenges Latino youth face, fostering safer communities, and creating a foundation for lifelong success. Together, we are investing in the safety and well-being of the next generation.”

Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Lung Health Experts Warn of Dangers of Wildfire Smoke Exposure

Dr. Alison Lee, American Thoracic Society

Dr. Laura Myers is based in northern California at Kaiser Permanent. She is an expert in air quality and lung health. Myers, Laura – Kaiser Permanente Division of Research

Dr. Alison Lee is chair of the Environmental Health Policy Committee at the American Thoracic Society. Dr. Lee is also an Associate Professor of Medicine with tenure and pulmonologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Dr. Lee is an NIH-funded investigator whose research examines the impact of prenatal and early childhood environmental exposures, including ambient and household air pollution and climate sensitive variables such as heat and precipitation, on life course health.

Following the release of the 2023 Health of the Air Report, led by the ATS and Marrone Institute of Urban Management at NYU, Dr. Lee interviewed study author and Marrone Institute Program Director, Kevin Cromar, PhD about the report’s findings on wildfires.

Electrifying Your Workout Can Boost Muscles Mass, Strength, UTEP Study Finds

Jan. 10, 2025– If building strength and muscle mass is part of your New Year’s Resolution, you may want to add a new routine to your workout.

Neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES), or electrical muscle stimulation for short, uses electrical currents to contract muscles. The stimulation devices are easy to use and widely available on the market, according to Sudip Bajpeyi, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Kinesiology at The University of Texas at El Paso, but he has often wondered, “Can these stimulators offer any benefits when used during resistance training? What does the research say?”

Well, the results are in — and they are promising. In a new meta-analysis study published this month in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, Bajpeyi found that using NMES while doing resistance training leads to greater muscle mass and strength compared to resistance training alone.

Bajpeyi and his team conducted the meta-analysis comprising more than a dozen studies that used NMES and reviewed their results.

“A meta-analysis provides more comprehensive evidence on studies that explore the same research question,” Bajpeyi explained. “This approach allows us to move beyond the limitations of individual studies and make more informed, evidence-based conclusions.”

Co-authors on the study are Gabriel Narvaez, a recently graduated master’s student in kinesiology, and Jehu N. Apaflo, a doctoral student in interdisciplinary health sciences.

The team specifically analyzed research that combined NMES with resistance training.

The analysis focused on studies where participants performed traditional resistance exercises, such as bench presses or squats, while using NMES devices. That’s when you do about eight to 12 repetitions of one weight training exercise, rest and repeat, Bajpeyi said.

The studies compared the results of participants using electrical stimulators while exercising to those who did the exercises with no electrical stimulation. Participants’ muscle mass and strength were assessed at the beginning and the end of each study. Training periods for participants ranged from two to 16 weeks, with longer durations yielding better results.

“Under normal conditions, the brain activates muscles by sending signals through the nervous system.” Bajpeyi said. “NMES mimics this process by delivering external electrical currents to the nerves, causing the muscles to contract, without input from the brain. Think of it as though your muscles are contracting involuntarily.”

Bajpeyi is the director of the Metabolic Nutrition and Exercise Research (MiNER) lab at UTEP, where his team studies how NMES or other interventions can improve physical and metabolic health.

Funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, Bajpeyi is currently investigating how NMES might help regulate blood glucose levels and reduce the risk for type 2 diabetes.

“Exercise is medicine, but not everyone is able or willing to engage in traditional exercise” he said. “NMES has great potential for improving metabolic health by building muscle mass, which can help the body process blood glucose more effectively.”

MSU Researcher Connects Change in DNA to Cleft Palate Phenomenon

EAST LANSING, Mich. – Cleft lip and cleft palate are some of the most common birth defects in people, affecting roughly one in every 700 babies in the world. Cleft lip — when the upper lip is split — is more common than cleft palate — when the roof of the mouth (palate) is split — except in Finland, where cases of cleft palate are so common they flip the ratio of cleft lip to cleft palate.

Researchers have identified a likely culprit: a change in DNA variant near a specific gene. Previous studies showed that DNA changes in this gene cause and contribute to risk for both cleft lip and cleft palate. Surprisingly, in this new study, published in Nature Communications, researchers found the effect of this DNA variant only increases risk for cleft palate.

Brian Schutte, geneticist, associate professor and co-director of the D.O.-Ph.D. Physician-Scientist Training Program at the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine, along with scientists from FinnGen, AbbVie Inc., the University of Helsinki, the University of Washington School of Dentistry, the Estonian Genome Center and other key collaborators, tie this change in DNA, which is found only in Finland and Estonia, to Finland’s high frequency of cleft palate. The team also connects this DNA change to Finland’s statistically significant geographic distribution of cleft palate cases, which become more frequent from the southwest to the northeast. This regional distribution of cleft palate has not been observed anywhere else in the world.

In next steps, Schutte will work with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to genotype blood samples from Michigan’s BioTrust. These samples will come from babies born with cleft palates from Ontonagon, Houghton, Schoolcraft, Marquette and Chippewa counties, where a significant number of Michiganders with Finnish ancestry live.

“If we find the DNA change in those Michigan samples, but the frequency of cleft palate is not high like it is in Finland, that would suggest an environmental or other component that makes cleft palate less common in Michigan than in Finland, despite the genetic connection between the people,” Schutte said. “That has clinical, risk and public health ramifications.”

Penn Medicine Launches a Pioneering Project to Study the Human Virome Puzzle

PHILADELPHIA – For over a decade, scientists have studied the microbiome, the environment of microorganisms that live on and in the body, and how it affects health and disease. Much less is known about a part of the microbiome called the virome, the universe of viruses residing within our bodies. Now, researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have set out to identify, quantify, and classify those viruses so that future research can uncover how they affect human health. Ultimately, that could lead to new treatment and ways to prevent disease.

The endeavor, in collaboration with Penn Dental Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), is part of the National Institutes of Health’s Human Virome Program and includes a $20-million grant to the research team spread over 5 years. The scientists, led by Ron Collman, MD, a professor of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care at Penn, and Frederic Bushman, PhD, the William Maul Measey Professor in Microbiology at Penn, will focus on viruses within 4 distinct areas: the gut, the upper-respiratory system and lungs, the mouth, and blood.

“This massive project will give the scientific community a solid foundation on which to build research,” said Collman. “We can’t begin to understand the interplay of these viruses with each other and other systems in the body until we have a full picture. Otherwise, it’s like trying to put a puzzle together without all the pieces.”

Viruses can live for a short period of time within our bodies, like influenza or SARS-CoV-2, or infect cells for years, like HIV and the varicella-zoster virus (which causes chickenpox and shingles). Both the short-lived (acute) and persistent viruses can cause symptoms, or they can be asymptomatic. But researchers agree that, since there are so many viruses present, some we know already and some we don’t, there is a high probability that many viruses play a role in human health or disease even if they don’t directly cause symptoms, said Collman. For example, a virus called cytomegalovirus (CMV) can be present in a person’s body but usually causes no symptoms. However, research has shown that this virus plays a role in the aging process of the immune system.

“Our body is full of ‘hitchhikers’ like CMV that typically don’t make us ill, but may play an important role in our biological processes,” said Collman.

Beyond the viruses that live in human cells, the human body is also host to innumerable viruses that live in cells of the human microbiome, Collman said. How those viruses affect the microbiome human health is even less studied.

To track changes to the virome over time, researchers will use new samples as well as older samples from biobanks at Penn and CHOP.

Research into the microbiome accelerated rapidly over the last 15 years, said Bushman. He and his colleagues were among the first to paint a clear picture of the gut microbiome including its developmental stages in newborns. But, compared to viruses, bacteria are a lot easier to study, he said.

“Virome research lags behind microbiome research,” said Bushman. “Bacteria are much bigger than viruses, and until recently, we did not have the technology, sequencing tools, and computational capacity to study viruses in the same way.”

Argonne to Lead Two Microelectronics Research Projects Under U.S. Department of Energy Initiative

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory is managing two microelectronics studies that will support multidisciplinary co-design of hardware and software and enable processing of vast quantities of data at unprecedented speeds. Argonne is a premier research institution in microelectronics, the tiny devices that power and control computers, smartphones, electric vehicles and other information processing equipment and leads the projects as part of DOE’s Microelectronics Science Research Centers.

In December 2024, DOE’s Office of Science announced $160 million in funding to establish the research centers, which are being implemented through the historic CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. The centers will focus on microelectronics technologies for computing, communication, sensing and power. Researchers in the microelectronics field seek transformative advances in energy efficiency and/or resilience in extreme environments.

One of the Argonne projects, ​“Ultra Dense Memory: Atom Scale Material Dynamics and Systems Consequences,” will be led by Supratik Guha, senior adviser to Argonne’s Physical Sciences and Engineering directorate. The University of Chicago, Purdue University, the Georgia Institute of Technology and Chicago State University are academic partners, and IBM and Micron Technologies are industrial collaborators.

The project will focus on future generations of extreme-scale memories — architectures and technologies designed to handle massive amounts of data at exceptionally high speeds, needed for tomorrow’s high performance computers and sensors — and their synthesis for on-chip and off-chip applications. This project is part of DOE’s Extreme Lithography & Materials Innovation Center.

The other project, ​“BIA: A Co-Design Methodology to Transform Materials and Computer Architecture Research for Energy Efficiency,” will be led by Argonne Distinguished Fellow Valerie Taylor, Mathematics and Computer Science division director. Laboratory and university partners are Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, The University of Chicago, Northwestern University and Rice University.

Named for Bia, the Olympian goddess of force and energy, the BIA project includes an industry advisory board with representatives from AMD, Enosemi, Lam Research, Northrop Grumman and NVIDIA. BIA’s goal is to develop a codesign methodology for microelectronics that considers the relationships between vertically stacked, integrated electronics.

Codesign for microelectronics requires a multidisciplinary team consisting of researchers in materials design, devices, computer systems and applications such as high energy physics, working together to address the unique application needs. BIA is part of the Microelectronics Energy Efficiency Research Center for Advanced Technologies.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology by conducting leading-edge basic and applied research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

International Team Analyzes the Universe’s First Light at South Pole Telescope

Data from the South Pole Telescope has provided support for the standard model of the Big Bang universe and new insights for an ongoing scientific puzzle known as ​“the Hubble tension.”

Roughly 400,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe cooled just enough to allow photons to escape from the primordial cosmological soup, an opaque cloud consisting of a plasma of electrons and nuclei. As stars and galaxies formed over the next 14 billion years, these ancient photons — the universe’s first light — continued traveling. This relic light is known as the cosmic microwave background (CMB).

In a new study, researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory joined a large team to analyze observational data on the CMB, collected from the South Pole Telescope (SPT). Situated at the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica, the SPT provides high-precision measurements crucial for cosmological investigations. At the heart of this telescope is its third-generation (SPT-3G) camera, equipped with 16,000 detectors — 10 times more than its predecessor. It was installed in 2017 after development by several universities and an Argonne-led team of national laboratories.

“Many mysteries remain about the origin and early history of the universe, and this work provides an important step forward in solving them.” — Amy Bender, Argonne physicist

The team for the present project, led by researchers from the University of California, Davis, aimed to explore the theoretical underpinnings of the standard cosmological model of the Big Bang. The model describes the history of the universe, including its expansion and the growth of large-scale structures over the past 14 billion years.

“We have a largely coherent, detailed and successful model describing these 14 billion years of evolution,” said Lloyd Knox, the Michael and Ester Vaida Endowed Chair in Cosmology and Astrophysics at UC Davis. The study, based on high-precision measurements of the CMB and its polarized light, adds further support to the veracity of the standard cosmological model.

“Our results are kind of crossing a threshold where what we are learning from the polarization maps of the CMB is comparable to what we are learning from the CMB intensity maps,” Knox added. ​“What we are concluding from polarization is also consistent with what we are concluding from intensity.”

“This is the culmination of many years of work,” said Argonne Physicist Amy Bender. ​“We are the host lab for the SPT-3G experiment, and our role was to build the detectors used in the telescope and make the measurements of the CMB polarized light. We were thrilled to find the information in the map for polarization matched that for the intensity of the CMB light.”

A polarizing and winding journey across the universe
In the study, the researchers analyzed two years of polarized light data collected by the SPT in 2019 and 2020. The study’s observations cover 1,500 square degrees of sky and the collected data enabled the researchers to create a large-scale map of the mass in the universe.

Most natural light is unpolarized, composed of a random collection of light waves, each oscillating (waving up and down) with no preferred direction. But when light is reflected it can become polarized, the light oscillating in a preferred direction.

This happens when sunlight reflects off water, or the ground, and is the reason polarized sunglasses can be so helpful for reducing glare. It also happened as the CMB photons underwent their final scattering events in the primordial plasma as it began to disappear 14 billion years ago.

“The light from the CMB is partially polarized,” Knox said. ​“We’re measuring at each location in our sky map the degree to which it’s polarized and the orientation of the polarization.”

After that last scattering, the slightly polarized CMB light streamed across open space. Gravitational forces distort the paths of these light rays. Light from different regions is also distorted differently, resulting in a warped image — an effect called gravitational lensing.

To discover both what the polarized image would look like in the absence of gravitational lensing and also the map of the mass causing the lensing, the team used computers at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) in Berkeley.

“What we essentially do at a really high level is we have this data, and we send it over to this supercomputer at NERSC,” said Marius Millea, a project scientist with Knox’s research group. ​“And the computers are testing this idea, ​‘If this were how the real universe looked, would it produce a map that looks like what we saw?’”

“We have the data, but we also need to have a model that produces or predicts these kind of observables,” added Fei Ge, a graduate student with Knox’s research group and the study’s first author.

The Hubble tension
The team’s research directly addresses a conundrum in the cosmological community known as ​“the Hubble tension.” In essence, scientists can’t come to an agreement on the rate of the expansion of the universe, which varies depending on the methodology used to measure it.

In one method, astronomers use the standard cosmological model, combined with observations of the CMB, to predict how rapidly the universe is expanding today.

In another method, they use observations of stars, and stellar explosions called supernovae, to measure the expansion rate more directly. Measurement from this method comes in higher — a faster rate of expansion — than the standard model predictions. This is the Hubble tension, one of the major puzzles in contemporary cosmology. The origin of the discrepancy is unknown.

The team’s new prediction is precise enough to be discrepant with the supernova measurements at very high statistical significance. It aligns more with the rate of expansion predicted by the standard cosmological model and CMB intensity method. The study thus reveals one more hoop that any solution to the Hubble tension will have to jump through.

“Many mysteries remain about the origin and early history of the universe, and this work provides an important step forward in solving them,” Bender noted.

In addition to Bender, Argonne team members include Lindsey Bleem, Clarence Chang, Zhaodi Pan, Florian Kéruzoré and Wei Quan.

This project received funding from the NSF’s Office of Polar Programs and DOE’s Office of Science High Energy Physics.

Pre Budget Quotes by Experts in the Real Estate Sector

Peush Jain, MD-Commercial Leasing and Advisory, Anarock Group

The office sector growth is expected to stay buoyant with supply to touch a billion sq.ft. by the end of the 2025 with record leasing activity led by GCCs and flex space operators. The Budget must focus on not just maintaining India’s growth momentum but also initiating reforms that will aid India’s attractiveness as an investment destination for both domestic and foreign companies. Input tax credit on fit-outs, review of depreciation and amortisation rates for assets on the backdrop of larger adoption or AI and incentivising new technology sectors would fuel the office demand evenly across the country.

 Ankur Jalan, CEO, Golden Growth Fund (GGF)

AIFs as a tool for wealth diversification have become a preferred choice for affluent individuals as is evident from the fact that real estate contributed the highest share of investment from AIFs at over Rs 75,400 crore in the first half of FY25 with participation from both domestic and foreign investors. Real estate focused AIFs have huge opportunity to tap the untapped potential of the vast real estate landscape in the country by opening up not only funding avenues for development but also wealth creation for investors. The Budget must endeavour to achieve parity in capital gains on listed and unlisted instruments so as to make it more attractive for both domestic and foreign investors. Also ‘gains from investment’ must be classified on similar lines across instruments so that AIFs too enjoy the benefit.

 Garvit Tiwari, director and co-founder of InfraMantra

The weak urban demand seen in the year gone by, a lot of hope is being pinned on the Budget to help revive urban consumption so that India maintains its growth trajectory. Income tax cut must be the Budget’s top priority. Reduction in GST on both construction material and under-construction properties will help developers to reduce the price of homes. Additionally, land and labour reforms will nudge the private sector to invest in India and help create jobs. Raising the affordable housing limit to Rs 1 crore will help bring fence-sitters into the real estate market and drive demand in the sector.

Mr. Sandeep Ahuja Global CEO of Atmosphere Living

“The luxury real estate sector in India continues to be on an upward trend and is likely to remain so. Therefore it is of utmost importance to lead on the policies that incentivize buyer involvement. Sustainability incentives will help to increase the resonance of green projects, which correspond to the viability of the projects all over the world, and therefore, they are likely to be sought after. Those steps will contribute not only to the attraction of capital but India will also strengthen its position as the leader in the real estate sector. Apart from that, there is also a necessity for policies that enhance the ease of doing business including a relaxation in the FDI norms. These changes will help boost both local and foreign investments, and thus, the real estate market will become more vibrant. With the right blend of changes, the budget can thus be an engine for prosperity in the long run, and the right investors will be heading to India’s enlarging luxury real estate market.”

Siddarth Pai, Founding Partner and CFO, 3one4 Capital & Co-Chair, Regulatory Affairs Committee, IVCA

“2024 witnessed quarter on quarter capital formation via AIFs dip to single digits, compared to double digit growth in 2023. AIFs play a crucial role in terms of capital formation in India and investments in the Indian economy. The last budget saw the rationalization of tax rates between listed and unlisted entities, a longstanding ask of Indian AIFs and startups. The need of the hour is clarity and parity: tax clarity on numerous operations of AIFs, such as the characterization of their gains, tax treatment at the end of a fund’s life, how demataterizaliton of Units will play out with the atx code; Parity between foreign and domestic funds in terms of taxation is also required. Both of these will be crucial to attract foreign investors to AIFs; if they see Foreign Funds enjoying better tax treatment in India, they would prefer these foreign vehicles instead of Indian AIFs. This parity will also attract investors and fund managers to GIFT IFSC as it seeks to establish itself firmly amongsgt international financial centres. As the uncertainty around the elections of 2024 has abated, Budget 2025 must deliver on the twin asks of clarity and aprity to allow AIFs to garner capital and kick start a new investment cycle.”

Doctor Sports a Passion for Pickleball, Pingpong and Pediatric Medicine

For Vikas Dharnidharka, chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, playing pickleball and pingpong dovetails with his role as a health care provider to children.

“I think it’s part of a pediatrician’s DNA to be empathetic, caring and humorous,” said Dharnidharka, a board-certified pediatric nephrologist, transplant specialist and Henry Rutgers Professor who also serves as physician-in-chief of The Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. “When we see patients, we joke with them and use small talk to build trust. These qualities are important when playing recreational racquet sports, too. Empathy and teamwork are especially important if you’re playing doubles. And these sports are much more fun if you don’t take playing them too seriously.”

While growing up in India, Dharnidharka played a variety of racquet sports, including badminton and pingpong. This interest continued through middle age when he began playing tennis while living in Florida. About 10 years ago, he joined a pingpong league in St. Louis. About five years ago while playing in the league, he learned about pickleball, a relatively new sport at the time.

“I find all racquet sports fun,” Dharnidharka said. “There’s physical activity involved, and also skill and strategy.”

The benefits of playing are multifold, according to the doctor. It keeps him in shape, which he believes is important to model as a physician. Compared with tennis, pickleball and ping pong are less impactful on the body and can help quicken reflexes and improve balance. Dharnidharka said he recommends medical students and residents take advantage of the pingpong tables in public spaces on campus.

“Pingpong is a good activity to do for a few minutes between obligations,” he explains. “It’s great for fitness, but also great for relaxing. There’s a table with paddles and balls where the med students sit, but I’ve not seen them play. I’d love to see them use it. Playing provides really good stress relief.”

Dharnidharka’s interest in pickleball has progressed beyond a hobby. He has competed in noncommercial tournaments at the city, state and national levels, both in singles and doubles. For the past few years, appearances on the medal podium at the Senior Olympics in St. Louis or Missouri earned him invitations to the National Senior Games for both pickleball and pingpong. Recently, Dharnidharka learned he has qualified for the fourth time for the National Senior Games in pingpong, which will take place this summer.

Dharnidharka has joined a local pingpong and pickle ball club to keep his skills sharp. His next competition is a friendly pingpong challenge he struck up between the Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Medicine.

“When I saw a pingpong table in the middle of the hallway on the seventh floor where the chairs of both departments have offices, I immediately challenged the Medicine Department to a tournament,” he said with a laugh.

The date for the tournament is March 6.

In his proposal to Jeanne Clark, chair of the Department of Medicine, Dharnidharka proposed matches for mixed doubles, women’s doubles, men’s doubles and two singles matches each for men and women.

The reward? Bragging rights on the seventh floor – and perhaps beyond. He also has spoken with a few transplant surgeons about playing as well.

“Medicine and pediatrics already compete in a softball tournament each summer,” said Dharnidharka. “I want to make it a fun experience. There’s already a culture here where the two departments interact in a friendly way, and I wanted to continue that, hopefully involve more departments.”

IIIT-Bangalore COMET Foundation Launches Certificate Program in Future Wireless Communications

Bangalore January 10, 2025: The International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) COMET Foundation proudly announces the launch of a cutting-edge Certificate Program in Future Wireless Communications. This program aims to equip participants with the essential skills and knowledge needed for the fast-evolving field of wireless communication, with a specific focus on 5G-NR systems.

The future of wireless communication lies at the heart of global connectivity, driving innovation in IoT, smart cities, autonomous vehicles, and more. Understanding 3GPP standards and mastering embedded system design are critical for shaping tomorrow’s communication networks.

Program Highlights:

Hands-on experience with wireless system design at the IIIT-B COMET Foundation Testbed.

In-depth learning of 5G-NR wireless communication aligned with 3GPP standards.

Opportunities for internships and full-time roles in cutting-edge wireless system design.

Scholarships of ₹15,000 per month for meritorious students.

Eligibility

Open to Diploma/BSc/B.Tech students in Science or Engineering, including final-year project students with an NOC.

Selection Process

Selection is based on an offline test at the IIIT-B campus. Students who meet a minimum threshold can join by paying the program fee, with scholarships available upon successful completion of Modules 1 and 2.

“Wireless communication is redefining how we connect and innovate. Our mission is to bridge the gap between academic learning and industry requirements. This program is designed to empower students to lead in this transformative era with skills that are both relevant and future-focused.”-remarked Mr. Sridhar Pillalamarri, CEO, IIIT-B COMET Foundation.