California: Heralding a golden era in non-resident Indian history, the University of Silicon Andhra has got its own premises in Militas town of California State in the US.
The university offers post graduate courses in Indian arts, Carnatic music, Kuchipudi dance among other disciplines. It has acquired a 25,000 sq ft. building constructed on 13.5 acres of land.
The building, purchased at a cost of $5.5 million, is meant to house its administrative, teaching, research and publications divisions.
Dr Lakireddy Hanimireddy, a reputed cardiologist and social service activist, is the main donor. He contributed a million dollars towards the building fund and expenditure.
The Silicon Andhra University has named the building as “Dr. Lakireddy Hanimireddy Building” in his honour.
The family members of Dr. Reddy who attended the grand opening ceremony of the new premises as guests of honour have promised all the possible assistance for the growth of the university in future.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Hanimireddy said Silicon Andhra has been known to him for the last 15 years as an able organization.
He appreciated its work culture involving all the members who work together as a family which prompted his family members to donate one million dollars.
Later, noted artists like violinist Annavarapu Ramaswamy, Chitraveena Ravikiran, Dr Vikram Lakireddy, Jayaprakash Reddy, Madhuri Kishore, Smitha Madhav, all members of Silicon Andhra, donors and others performed Satyanarayana Vrata Pooja en masse.
Kuchibhotla Anand, founder president of Silicon Andhra, said the postgraduate, diploma and certificate courses being introduced from January, 2017, have been designed keeping in mind the traditional Indian wisdom and modern technology. Every effort would be made to develop the courses with standards to match the famous Nalanda and Taxila universities, he said.
Chief Academic Officer Raju Chamarthi told the gathering that so far 25,000 students had been taught Telugu through Manabadi programme which was started ten years ago with just 150 students. In this academic year, 7,500 students have already registered for the course, he added.
University’s Chief Financial Officer Deenababu Kondubhatla, honoured the donors. Plans are afoot to raise $100 million with donations to construct a most modern university complex in the next five years, he said and appealed to all the donors to contact on +1 408 205 5527 for details.
Vice Chairman Dilip Kondiparthi, Ajay Ganti, Ravi Kuchibhotla, Sanjeev Tanugula, Santi Kuchibhotla, Sriram Kotni, Prabha Malempati, Sai Kandula, Ravi Chivukula, Phanimadhav Kasturi, Vamsi Nadella, Santi Ayyagari, Suresh Vuyyuru, Saratveta, Bhaskar Rayavaram, Danji Totapalli, MJ Tatipamula and others participated in the programme.
