Stevens awarded USAID grant to create MSIS degree with Sofia University in Bulgaria
Grant will also create center of excellence in information technology mgmt.
HOBOKEN , N.J. — Stevens Institute of Technology has been awarded a $100,000 grant from USAID as part of its Capacity Building for Training High Level IT Professionals in Bulgaria and South Eastern Europe program. The grant serves as a contribution toward implementing a joint Master of Science in Information Systems (MSIS) with the Sofia University in Bulgaria .
The focus of this two-year activity is to launch the MSIS program, delivered jointly by Stevens and Sofia University (SU). The goal of the program is to ensure that the Information Technology (IT) leaders of locally and regionally operating companies attain the management skills necessary to compete in today’s global market.
“The university-level education in the field of IT in Bulgaria and especially that at a Masters’ level suffers from serious deficiencies,” said Jerry Luftman, Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean of The Wesley J. Howe School of Technology Management. “On the demand side, this can be explained with the brain drain occurring during the past fifteen years. On the supply side, the economic restructuring has not been paralleled by swift reforms of the educational system. Their technical education is unsurpassed; however, their business/management education did not exist. Like in the N.Y./N.J. area our leading IS masters will help close this important gap, to help our Bulgarian friends overcome a significant bottleneck for foreign investments in this area.”
Upgrading the Bulgarian IT leadership (business and management) capacity to a higher professional level is recognized as being of strategic importance for the building of a competitive and knowledge-based economy. “It is also essential to support the US IT investments in the country and the region by meeting the demand for well-qualified executives to manage technology-oriented businesses,” said Luftman. “Such an investment is also expected to attract future US investments in Bulgaria ’s technology sector.”
USAID assistance will support the launch of the MSIS program in Bulgaria . The funding will be used for partial scholarships for program participants and for laying the foundations of a modern resource and library unit. A major USAID legacy from this program will be the establishment of a Center of Excellence in Information Technology Management at SU that will support the country’s IT sector development. One of the main functions of the center will be to provide cutting-edge, innovative training in the area of IT through the provision of a well recognized academic program such as Stevens’ MSIS, thus strengthening the capacity of the local universities and promoting new forms of public-private partnerships.
About Stevens Institute of Technology
Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.
Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.
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