Valeo partners top Indian institutes to tap innovation, make students industry-ready

Valeo, the global automotive technology supplier, has launched an Industry-Academia Connect program in India. The company aims to attract the best talent from local engineering institutes. It has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with premier educational institutes like Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Loyola-ICAM College of Engineering & Technology (LICET) and Society for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (SINE) – IIT Bombay.

Valeo’s new initiative looks to tap into engineering minds for innovative ideas that would help address emerging mobility needs. Also, through experiential learning opportunities and mentoring, the French supplier will also support them to become industry-ready professionals. 

Commenting on the programme, Ashok Belani, Group president and MD, Valeo India, said, “I am happy that we would be able to nurture bright young engineers and support them to become industry-ready professionals through direct exposure to Valeo’s latest international processes and technology and mentoring provided by our experts."

CoE at VIT, skilling at LICET, start-up accelerator at IIT-B

Valeo’s collaboration with VIT will see the company set up a Centre of Excellence at the VIT Campus to support students and research scholars in automotive research, especially in powertrain, safety, power electronics and infotainment systems. In addition, Valeo looks to initiate joint research projects along with VIT on emerging technologies and work closely with the students to identify and nurture new ideas and develop workable solutions to address industry-specific needs.

The MoU between Valeo and LICET will enable both the organisations to work together in areas of common interests such as mechanical engineering, electrical and electronics engineering, electronics and communication engineering, computer science and information technology. Valeo intends to support the students by equipping them with the right skill-sets to work with emerging auto technologies. As part of the MoU, select students could be given opportunities to work at Valeo sites globally.

Valeo has also joined hands with the Society for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (SINE) - IIT Bombay, for the second edition of ‘Plugin’, a collaborative accelerator program. The Plugin is a joint initiative of SINE-IIT Bombay, Intel India and Department of Science & Technology (DST) that provides mentoring, training along with networking opportunities for start-ups.

As Plugin’s ‘Corporate Collaborator’, Valeo will get early access to SINE’s start-ups and innovators working in the transportation domain and it will support these chosen start-ups with technical training, technical expertise, access to the proto-suppliers and manufacturing process expertise. 

In addition, Valeo, along with 'ShARE', a Shanghai-based training institute, has initiated a 'Student Ambassador Program' in India. As part of the program, students from premier Indian institutes – Indian Institute of Technology Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Roorkee and Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad – are chosen as student ambassadors, who will work to create awareness for Valeo and its technologies among the student community. In return, Valeo will provide content and consulting missions to the students.

“India is a key market for Valeo and the R&D facility set up in Chennai is emerging as a global R&D hub, contributing significantly to all Valeo customers across the world. We are scaling up our R&D operations and will be increasing the R&D headcount to 5,000 engineers by 2023. I am confident that through these Industry-Academia Connect initiatives, Valeo would be able to recruit the best from the engineering talent pool available in the country,” said Belani.

Present in India since 1997, Valeo has seven production sites, one global R&D centre, two distribution platforms and two front offices to serve clients. Valeo employs over 4,000 people in India, of which nearly 50 percent are engineers.

Valeo’s R&D hub in Chennai employs over 1,000 Indian engineers. The company has been leveraging their skillsets in the areas of mechanical design, simulation, embedded software development, computer vision, machine learning and hardware, and also functional safety design for its global customers since 2010.