Partnership with University of Oulu, Finland


On 21 January 2008, Professor Peter Haddawy, Vice-President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Nandana Rajatheva, Coordinator of the Telecommunications field of study and AIT President Said Irandoust, met Dr. Matti Latva-aho, Director of the Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC), University of Oulu, Finland, who was accompanied by Mr. Attaphongse Taparugssanagorn, Research Scientist.

http://www.cwc.oulu.fi/home/
http://www.cwc.oulu.fi/home/news-latest.html

The University of Oulu and AIT are currently finalizing an agreement on a dual doctoral degree program which will enable selected doctoral students from both institutions to be jointly supervised by both institutions and split their study time between Oulu's campus and AIT's. All aspects will require joint supervision and hence would lead to better research collaboration as CWC Oulu is a top center in wireless research in the world. AIT President strongly supports and encourages the launching of this kind of collaborative programs.

The University of Oulu also plans to start next year an international master's program in telecom engineering, which could provide an opportunity to develop a dual master degree program with AIT, which the AIT President very much looks forward to seeing formalized. The AIT administration also learnt from our visitors about the business model of the CWC, which is an almost 100% externally funded research laboratory, with a tight industry-validated focus and a very lean structure in which students are fully involved in research work and, for doctoral students, the supervision of master's students. AIT can certainly learn from such models in order to better adapt to a changing environment.

In addition, soon several topics for master's students will be discussed. A few travel grants would be provided to AIT students whose papers are to be presented at the WPMC 2008 conference in Lapland during which they would also have an opportunity of a short stay at CWC.