Award: The University of South Florida (USF), Tampa, USA with its partner institutes Rajiv Gandhi University (RGU), Doimukh and Research Institute of World’s Ancient Traditions Cultures and Heritage (RIWATCH), Roing jointly bagged the highly competitive 21st Century Knowledge Initiative Awards.

The United Sates Department of Education and University Grant Commission (UGC), India announced eight institutional partnership projects for the fifth and final round of the awards, out of which four are led by US universities partnering with India and other four by Indian Universities partnering with US Universities.

“It was our continuous eight years of engagement with USF, and our talks and deliberations in USA on educational needs of Arunachal Pradesh has resulted in signing up MoU on academic collaboration with USF in 2008,” said Dr. Joram Begi, Chairman RIWATCH and former Director, Higher and Technical Education, Govt. of Arunachal Pradesh, while speaking on the successes.
“We had series of lectures in number of universities in USA in 2008 and 2010, and many of them shown keen interest in traditional knowledge, sustainable development, public health etc. The engagement with USF strengthened with two study programs at RIWATCH, and joint research projects on Public Health by Dr. Carrion Iraida and Dr. Manisha Joshi– faculties of USF,” Dr. Begi said.
We felt the need of involving RGU and accordingly, last year meetings were held with Dept. of Tribal Studies and the Vice Chancellor. This award reassures us that the institutes of higher education in the state are successfully networking with global universities.” Dr. Begi added.

The award originally conceived by Obama-Singh foundation is being executed by bi-national joint working group under India-US educational partnership.

The USF, RIWATCH and RGU will now jointly work on “An Indigenous studies field school for global exchange in North East India, fostering educational and public health initiatives.It is a three years project and would receive a grant upto 1,90,000 USD.

The project also aims at encouraging mutual understanding, educational reforms, economic growth, development of faculties and exchange programs among partnering institutes.

To implement this initiative, the Governments of India and the US established a bi-national joint working group (JWG), which provides the final approval for all grants awarded through the US-India 21st Century Knowledge Initiative. The US is represented by the Department of State and the Government of India is represented by the UGC.