Baku, December 6, AZERTAC

A delegation of experts from Politecnico di Torino headed by Vice-Rector for International Relations David Chiaramonti visited Azerbaijan on November 29-December 3. The purpose of the visit has been to kick off the cooperation on engineering programs development within the Italy-Azerbaijan University, which will be based at ADA University. The Task Leaders on Education and Infrastructures, respectively prof Michele Bonino and Ing Mario Ravera, took part to the visit, together with other professors and experts from Politecnico di Torino.

Throughout, Rector Hafiz Pashayev of ADA University has led discussions on launching new programs in strategic sectors of economy and high demand areas. The delegation maintained high level discussions with Minister of Agriculture Inam Karimov. Round table discussion was held with participation of Deputy Minister of Energy Elnur Soltanov, Deputy Minister of Science and Education Mukhtar Mammadov, Deputy Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Vugar Karimov and Director of the State Agency for Renewable Energy Sources Javid Abdullayev. The delegation also met with Ambassador of Italy to Azerbaijan Claudio Taffuri to discuss the framework of the collaboration.

To tailor academic programs to address the current challenges in technology and engineering, the delegation also carried out discussions with local industry representatives in sectors of electrical engineering, agriculture, and water resources management. Besides, trips to power substation with support of AzerEnerji and to a research institute with support of the Ministry of Agriculture were carried out.

According to Galib Mammad, the head of the Task Force for Italy-Azerbaijan University, the partnership with Politecnico di Torino will help to accelerate the benefits of technology and engineering, boost human capacity in high demand areas, help build research infrastructure and a core body of faculty and researchers in engineering at ADA University. The program portfolio will include electrical engineering, including renewable energy, energy in agriculture, agroengineering, water resources management, computer science, computer engineering and others. These programs will be taught together with Politecnico di Torino.

Vice Rector of Politecnico di Torino David Chiaramonti underlined that the collaboration with ADA is a strategic action for Politecnico framed into the Azerbaijan-Italian cooperation. This is testified by the large delegation from Turin that took part to the 4-days meeting, which engaged several departments as Energy, Environmental Engineering, Control and Computer Engineering, Regional and Urban Studies and Planning as well as the Infrastructure development area. The intense and fruitful discussion paved the way to both Educational and Research actions to be implemented in the coming years through a preliminary study which will design courses and research infrastructures.

Politecnico di Torino was the third partner Italian university after University of Bologna and Politecnico di Milano to visit for preliminary study within Italy-Azerbaijan University project.