The Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (RBC DSAI) at IIT Madras has invited applications for the post-Baccalaureate Fellowship Program in the areas of data science and artificial intelligence. Students who have completed a bachelor’s degree in the past two years can apply for the fellowship. The fellowship provides a stipend between Rs 40,000 and Rs 60,000 a month based on students’ qualifications and experience, and continues for a maximum of two years. It also includes a fully-funded trip to a national conference every year.

All interested students can send the application form by the 20th of every month, and the short-listed candidates will be interviewed in the first week of the subsequent month. The application should include a link to the applicant’s online CV, a short research proposal of 500 words, a list of research areas, relevant online courses that the applicant has already done. This year the centre has increased the number of fellowships to 15, amid COVID crisis. Only four students were granted the fellowships last year from more than 100 applicants. “With the COVID-19 crisis causing many companies to rescind job offers even to some of the brightest graduating students, this is an option to truly motivate students to explore a research career,” the IIT said in a statement.

The areas of research include deep learning, network analytics, natural language processing, theoretical machine learning, reinforcement learning and multi-arm bandits, the system architecture for data science and AI, ethics, fairness and explainability in AI, systems biology and health care, smart cities and transportation and financial analytics.

According to Prof B Ravindran, Head, RBC DSAI, the Post Baccalaureate fellows are expected to undertake independent research under the mentorship of a faculty member at RBCDSAI. The fellows can also explore multiple threads of research, work with various research teams, and establish collaborations with the numerous visitors and affiliates of the centre. “They have access to all the computing, software and library resources of RBCDSAI and have guaranteed travel support to attend a conference per year in India,” he said.