Mphasis pioneers India’s first Center of Excellence for Cognitive Computing in partnership with IIIT Bangalore

Bangalore, September 27, 2018: Mphasis (BSE: 526299; NSE: MPHASIS), an IT services and solutions provider specializing in cloud and cognitive services, today inaugurated a first of its kind Center of Excellence (CoE) for Cognitive Computing in collaboration with International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B). The CoE will leverage cognitive computing technology to solve problems related to education, enterprises, and accessibility. Through this pioneering initiative, the center aims to co-create open source IP assets on applied research with relevance to societal and enterprise challenges. The company announced that it will invest more than INR 50M over the next three years towards the initiative.

In an effort to use technology and its pervasiveness to address challenges faced by the social and enterprise sectors, Mphasis is collaborating with academia to leverage cognitive technology to co-create a new approach towards a joint solution delivery. 

Technologies like accurate speech recognition, machine translation, video analytics, and video synthesis have become a reality due to cognitive science. These have the potential to enable disruptive solutions in Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities (PwDs’), a key focus area of the CoE. The Centre has initiated a project related to Accessibility in order to develop algorithms that will help real-time synthesis of Indian Sign language. This can be revolutionary in enabling the deaf community to communicate effectively with the hearing community, considerably improving their quality of life and interaction with society. For a country with only 250 certified sign language interpreters translating for a deaf population ranging from 1.8 million to 7 million, this can be a boon.

Another aspect that the Centre will focus on is to use cognitive computing to solve challenges faced by enterprises. A project under this category that focuses on enabling information convergence for real-time intelligence on social issues is underway. Similar to how mobile phones made media convergence possible, Information convergence is focused on deriving intelligent insights from information scattered across heterogeneous data sources. For example, tracking a criminal activity such as trafficking across the entire spectrum of digital footprint (across social media, police criminal records, call records, for example) will be invaluable in stitching together the whole trail of questionable actions.

“Technology-based innovations have the potential to transform lives of people at scale and positively affect development outcomes. Mphasis’ CSR initiatives have always focused on supporting innovative technology-based projects with high impact potential. We firmly believe that the research outputs from the CoE for Cognitive Computing will have wide applicability and benefits for several problems faced by the society across multiple sectors. These innovations have the potential to bridge the divide between digital haves and have-nots, improving the prospects and quality of lives of millions,” said Srikanth Karra, Chief Human Resources Officer, Mphasis

Commenting on the partnership, Sundar Subramanian, President - Global Delivery, Mphasis, said “Cognitive computing is one of the major pillars on which tomorrow's enterprises are being built. As these technologies become all pervasive, enterprises will explore newer business models to develop innovative solutions and services that are better aligned to the market needs. As a technology company solving challenges faced by enterprises, we strongly believe that our partnership with IIIT-B will help create research assets that will further the cause of technological evolution and adoption in the social sector.” 

“Research at IIIT-B has been focused on utilizing data science and cognitive computing, to provide learners with curated and personalized learning pathways, and a pedagogic model that balances between independent learning, teacher-driven learning, and social learning. We are confident that with the active involvement of technology experts from Mphasis, the team at IIITB will be able to see more technology-driven solutions with a social impact take fruition.”, added Professor S. Sadagopan, Director at IIIT-B.

About IIITBangalore

The International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIITB) was set up consequent to the Karnataka Industrial Promotion Policy for the Information Technology sector of 1997. The Institute was registered in September 1998. The Institute is a registered not-for-profit society funded jointly by the Government of Karnataka and the IT industry. The Institute works in partnership with the corporate sector, while retaining the freedom of an academic institution. IIIT-B is an exclusive graduate school that offers programs that lead to post-graduate degrees. The graduate study programs offered lead to (a) course-based outcomes, namely the Integrated Master of Technology (Integrated M. Tech.), and the Master of Technology (M. Tech.) in Information Technology and Electronic Systems Design, M. Sc in Digital Society, and (b) research outcomes, namely, the Master of Science by Research, and the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) degrees.

About Mphasis
Mphasis (BSE: 526299; NSE: MPHASIS) enables customers to reimagine their digital future by applying a unique formula of integrated cloud and cognitive technology. Mphasis X2C2 TM formula for success, (anything to cloud powered by cognitive), drives multi-dimensions of business value with an integrated consumer-centric Front2Back Digital Transformation™, enabling Business Operations and Technology Transformation. Mphasis applies advancements in cognitive and cloud to traditional application and infrastructure services to bring much needed efficiency and cost effectiveness. Mphasis’ core reference architectures and tools, combined with domain expertise and hyper specialization are the foundation for building strong relationships with marquee clients. Click here to know more