Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Mehta Family Foundation (MFF), Houston, Texas, USA, to establish the ‘Jyoti and Bhupat Mehta School of Health Sciences and Technology.’ This New School at IIT Guwahati will commence academic activities during the current academic year.

The MoU was signed virtually on 14th May 2022  in the presence of Prof. Ajay K. Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, Dr Rajiv I. Modi, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Guwahati, and Chairman and Managing Director, Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Shri Rahul Mehta, CEO, Mehta Family Foundation, Prof Ananth Grama, Prof. Rajiv K. Gupta, Prof. Shankar Subramaniam, Prof. T. G. Sitharam, Director, IIT Guwahati, Prof. S. K. Kakoty, Deputy Director, IIT Guwahati, and other Deans as well as faculty members of IIT Guwahati.

The Jyoti and Bhupat Mehta School of Health Sciences and Technology has launched new Master's and PhD programmes in Health Sciences and Technology this academic year. The first batch of 20 M.Tech students in the stream of Biomedical Science and Engineering will be admitted to IIT Guwahati through GATE 2022.

This new multi-disciplinary programme on Health Sciences and Technology at IIT Guwahati has been designed based on National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The NEP advocates development of a holistic academic curriculum to nurture the best talents of the country through both pedagogic as well as hands-on training.

The new programme will emphasise extending training in both theoretical as well as hands-on perspectives, which will enable the development of academic leaders with a strong scientific foundation alongside having the capability to translate the ideas into biomedical technologies.

The newly established school aims to train the students in topics related to Health Science and Technology, with the emphasis on courses from other disciplines of science and engineering such as Biosciences and Bioengineering, Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Mathematics and Statistics, and Design.

The school will:

1.  Foster cutting-edge research and innovation
2. Establish new standards of pedagogy and hands-on training methods in the areas related to the health sciences
3. Create a niche of startups and MSMEs who will provide evidence-based affordable healthcare technologies
4. Promote state-of-art biomedical and public health education

This school will have highly-qualified full-time faculty alongside having the guidance of the associated faculty members from diverse disciplines within IIT Guwahati, who have experience in nurturing the existing Masters’ and PhD programmes in the Engineering, Science, and Design department

The Mehta Family Foundation has a track record of having supported several institutes in the fields of healthcare education. Previously, the same philanthropic organisation supported the Mehta Family School of Data Sciences and Artificial Intelligence, IIT Guwahati.