IIT Madras through its Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (RBCDSAI) offers a Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship Program to aspirants who are interested in research.

Founded in 2017, the idea of Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship Program is to provide facilities for AI research to graduates to blaze a trail in the cutting-edge technologies. However, the fellowship is only for aspirants who have been graduated within the last two years. On selection, one can be involved in the research internship for up to two years. The stipend varies for the research internship but is between ₹40,000 to ₹60,000 per month.

To apply, aspirants would be required to submit their CV, short research proposal (300-500 words), list of interesting research areas (keywords), relevant courses completed (Coursera, NPTEL, or others), and a research proposal (300-500 words). 

As per a press release, only four aspirants were selected last year, but for the current term, it has been extended to offer 15 research internship positions. As per the released notification, the deadline for application is 20th of every month. Shortlisted candidates would be interviewed in the first week of the subsequent month.

Some of the benefits selected applicants will receive are access to high-performing CPUs/GPUs, a fully-funded trip to a national conference, and more. Learners will be able to work on a wide range of research topics such as deep learning, NLP, reinforcement learning, explainability in AI, smart cities, financial analytics, network analytics, among others. 

Prof B Ravindran, Head, RBCDSAI, said, “The Post Baccalaureate fellows are expected to undertake independent research under the mentorship of a faculty member at RBCDSAI. They are free to explore multiple threads of research, work with various research teams, and establish collaborations with the numerous visitors and affiliates of the centre. They will have access to all the computing, software and library resources of RBCDSAI”