Mumbai, 06 Jan, 2010 – Yahoo India Research & Development, entered into an agreement with Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IITB), to provide access to a cluster of servers running Yahoo’s Open Source Hadoop* software, and Web data, as part of an initiative to support the faculty and students of IITB in their research. The partnership will support IITB researchers study areas such as advanced searching and ranking techniques aimed at bridging the gap between unstructured, semi-structured and structured data, information extraction and natural language processing. This collaboration is an example of Yahoo’s global commitment to leveraging industry-academia relationships to deliver breakthrough technology and innovations. As a result of this agreement, IIT-B researchers will have access to a cloud computing environment, allowing them to carry out research on Web-scale data. The cluster provided by Yahoo has been set up at IIT Bombay and is already operational. Speaking at the inauguration of the Hadoop Cluster lab, Prabhakar Raghavan, SVP - Yahoo labs said, “The next wave of scientific breakthroughs will come from research and development conducted at the same unprecedented scale and scope as the Internet itself. Yahoo’s collaboration with IIT Bombay will provide some of the brightest minds in India and the world with the raw computing power, Web-scale software technology and rich data sets it will take to meet that challenge. We’re extremely pleased to be working with IIT Bombay and excited to see what research and innovations emerge from the project.” “We are pleased at Yahoo’s support of our research. IIT Bombay’s research on search, data management and natural language processing has received national and international recognition; this partnership will help us take our research to a new level, leveraging Web scale data.” said Prof. Devang Khakhar, Director, IIT-Bombay. *Hadoop is a Java software framework that supports data-intensive distributed applications under a free license. It enables high scalability and helps in massive parallel data intensive computations. About IIT Bombay IIT Bombay, set up by an Act of Parliament, was established in 1958, at Powai, a northern suburb of Mumbai. Today the Institute is recognised as one of the centres of academic excellence in the country. Over the years, there has been substantial progress at IIT Bombay in all academic and research activities, and a parallel improvement in facilities and infrastructure, to keep it at par with the best institutions in the world. Institutes in positions of excellence grow with time. The ideas and ideals on which such institutes are built evolve and change with national aspirations, national perspectives, and trends world - wide. IIT Bombay, too, is one such institution. On an average, the institute admits 700 candidates for the undergraduate programme through Joint Entrance Exam (JEE), 170 candidates for M.Sc. programmes, 850 candidates for different postgraduate programmes and 300 for Ph.D programmes every year. About Yahoo Yahoo attracts hundreds of millions of users every month through its innovative technology and engaging content and services, making it one of the most trafficked Internet destinations and a world class online media company. Yahoo's vision is to be the center of people's online lives by delivering personally relevant, meaningful Internet experiences. Yahoo is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit http://pressroom.yahoo.com or the company's blog, Yodel Anecdotal (http://yodel.yahoo.com). About Yahoo India Research & Development Yahoo India R&D was set up with a mission to be a world class products and services hub with deep domain expertise to deliver ‘wow’ consumer and advertiser experiences. The organization has invested in specialist talent in key areas like product and program managers, user experience designers, architects, engineers, developers and researchers to create a top-notch team in India. Yahoo India R&D has built out best in class consumer experiences and online advertising products for both global and emerging markets. Products like Yahoo Hot Jobs, Yahoo Maps and Yahoo Cricket are well known. Yahoo is the trademark and/or registered trademark of Yahoo Inc.All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners