First in India, IIT Madras to launch diploma in virtual reality from 2022

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras will shortly launch a virtual reality programme, one of the first. The diploma programme will be available beginning with the following academic year. The prestigious IIT has partnered with the Japanese business Monolith to provide an advanced diploma programme. The VR diploma programme will be offered online and offline, with the first cohort beginning in January 2022. Students who are interested in the diploma programme will be able to apply beginning in November.  The VR diploma programme is open to anybody with an engineering background, including those seeking engineering degrees. Every year, IIT Madras will accept 50 students for the programme.

Prof. M. Manivannan of the Department of Applied Mechanics at IIT Madras, noting the program's unique features, said it is not easy to provide such an immersive and multidisciplinary education online. He added both IIT Madras and Monolith had taken this as a challenge to provide this course for the first time in India.

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IIT Madras and Monolith Research and Training Labs, a Monolith affiliate firm, have inked an MoU for collaboration.  Noting that experimental and immersive technology is rapidly transforming key sectors such as healthcare, architecture, and engineering, Monolith director Yathiranjan Varadharajan stated that numerous studies have indicated that this new-age technology can boost the global economy significantly. He also noted that immersive technology can add $1.5 trillion to the global economy by 2030 by producing 23 million employment globally. According to IIT Madras, the advanced diploma degree in VR aims to meet the growing need for specialists in virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and haptics technologies.

Virtual reality is a computer-simulated environment in which users feel as though they are a part of the environment. Virtual reality allows users to perceive and feel visuals from the past, present, and future.

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• IIT Madras
• Virtual Reality
• Diploma
• VR diploma