Infosys sets up a science foundation in Bangalore

Bangalore, Feb 17 (ANI): IT major Infosys Technologies on Tuesday announced that it has set up a fund 'Infosys Science Foundation', for awarding outstanding achievements in various fields.

This foundation would be funded by a corpus of 210.5 million rupees, contributed by the firm's board members and an annual grant from Infosys Technologies Limited.

The trust would honour an annual award of five million rupees to the countrymen for their exceptional contribution in the arena of physical and mathematical sciences, engineering, life science and social sciences and economics.

The award is the largest one in the history of India and a jury of five eminent international personalities and academic experts in each discipline will choose five top awardees.

Addressing reporters here, Infosys founder N. R. Narayana Murthy said the aim was to focus on higher education.

"Focus on higher education is extremely important because we do not know about any country in the world, which has succeeded in solving the problem of its people, even the basic issues without a sound higher education system," Murthy said.

Murthy also added that India needs bright minds in all areas of academics, government, business and society to strive for global excellence.

Conceptualized in 1981 by seven people with 250 dollars, Infosys is a global leader in IT industry today, and offers a wide spectrum of IT and consulting services with revenues of over 4 billion dollars. (ANI)