Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (SOA) Deemed-to-be University (SOA) on Friday, July 12, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Armoured Vehicles Nigam Limited (AVNL), Ministry of Defence, Chennai, for joint collaboration in research, consultancy, advisory, education, training and projects.

As per the MoU, which will be in force for a period of five years, SOA and AVNL, a Central Public Sector Undertaking (CPSU), will collaborate in research based projects with a clear engagement rationale including deliverables outlined. 

The MoU was signed between Prof Pradipta Kumar Nanda, Vice-Chancellor of SOA and Biswaranjan Pattanaik, Director (HR) of AVNL.

AVNL also make campus recruitment of graduates at SOA selecting them for full-time employment or as interns while employees of AVNL can enroll in various degree programmes of the Deemed-to-be University such as MTech and PhD which are offered by the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), SOA’s faculty of engineering and technology.

Besides, AVNL can join the SOA Center for Innovation and Incubation (SOA-CII) to leverage the start-up ecosystem and work with the start-up companies collocated with SOA.

Ranjan Kumar Bal, General Manager (HR) of AVNL; Prof Manas Kumar Mallick, Director, ITER and Atal Incubation Centre; Pramod Kumar Panda, Chief Administrative Officer, SOA; Prof Renu Sharma, Additional Dean (Student Affairs), ITER; Prof DN Thattoi, Additional Dean (Academics), ITER; Prof Saroj Acharya, Head of Department, Mechanical Engineering, ITER; Prof Binod Kumar Sahu, Head of Department, Electrical Engineering, ITER; Prof Ayaskanta Mohanty and Prof Manoranjan Das, both faculties of the Institute of Business and Computer Studies (IBCS), SOA’s faculty of management sciences, were present during the signing of the MoU.