Our job is to develop curriculum, set up a laboratory, give teachings both through virtual classroom and face-to-face mode. We are also responsible for students' evaluation. But the degree will be awarded by the Addis Ababa University,' said Balakrishnan, a senior professor in the school of computer science at the IIT.

He said that Ehtiopia has set a target of producing 10,000 science and engineering students at the higher education level in next five years or so, and for this it has availed of the expertise of the IIT-Delhi as one of the partners. It wants to become technology-savvy and 'we are facilitating that'.

The elite institute is delivering the courses via a two-way video/audio link. 'This helps make interaction two-way and participatory. Students ask questions and we answer them while sitting in our institute,' explained Balakrishnan.

At least 46 faculty members are involved in the project and the IIT-Delhi offers up to 70 hours per week of instructions. There are around 50 students in each semester in each course.

'During every semester, the chief instructors of all subjects go to Ethiopia once to teach students in person. The whole idea is to make the learning process better and smoother. We are happy with the outcome so far,' he added.