The government of Odisha and UC Berkeley signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding, or MoU, that highlights cooperation in certain areas of research, according to Chris Bush, the executive director of the Institute for Business Innovation, or IBI, at Haas School of Business.
Members of campus have conducted research in India for years, according to Bush. In this instance, the Odisha government wanted to work with Haas and other faculty in research project development. They wanted to collaborate on topics including economic development, entrepreneurship and digital transformation, Bush said in an email.
“The State of Odisha’s government has committed itself to innovation and transformation to better serve its population,” Bush said in an email. “It sees a relationship with UC Berkeley as a chance to draw on the expertise of the top public university in the world to develop best practices and grow opportunities for its citizens.”
Gauthier Vasseur, executive director of the Fisher Center for Business Analytics, noted that there was an additional signature as a result of a nine-month-long preparation with the state of Odisha and the Fisher Center for Business Analytics, which is housed in IBI.
Further, OneBerkeley, a program led by a campus team in the “Berkeley Odisha Innovation Bureau” at IBI, committed to efforts of developing programs “to support the re- and upskilling of the state’s population and a team of 1000 local data scientists,” Vasseur said in an email. Vasseur said they will engage in research programs in the areas of climate control, healthcare, agriculture, disaster management and more.
“The state will be able to draw on the expertise of the world’s top public university to develop best practices around governance, sustainability, risk management, entrepreneurship, and a host of other topics,” Bush added in the email.
The state of Odisha itself has not responded to requests for comment as of press time. Vasseur said the parties hope to start developing and furthering programs as soon as this fall.
