The meeting, anchored by the state government-sponsored Thiruvananthapuram Technopark, will be attended by the top brass of companies including IBM, NIIT, Tata Consultancy Services, Compaq India, Tata Elxsi, Sun Micro Systems, Microsoft Corp (India) and CMC.

According to state IT secretary Aruna Sundararajan, a salient feature of the proposed IT school would be significant levels of industry participation in its governance. There would be strong industry-varsity linkage in curriculam design, consultancy and R&D, she said.

SITMA, an off-shoot of the state's IT policy, is conceived as a national-level institution on the lines of the IITs and IIMs. It is envisaged to offer a range of masters programmes in leading IT disciplines allied with management.

The campus of the institute is expected to be set upin a 10 acre plot in the Technopark Campus over the next two years. A niche feature of the school would be the focus on emerging areas including knowledge management, internet and multimedia technologies and entrepreneurship development.

Classes for the first batch of the 18-month masters programme at the institute is expected to start in June next. The first batch will be picked from engineering graduates through a national entrance examination on the lines of the CAR for IIMs.

PV Jayakrishnan, IT secretary, Sudheendra Kulkarni (director-IT, PMO and member, national IT task force), Rame Gowda (chairman, All India Council for Technical Education and additional secretary, HRD) have already confirmed their participation.

Industry participants will include Compaq India managing director Balu Doraiswamy, TCS CEO Rama Dorai, Tata Elxsi MD Devarajan and Infosys deputy MD Gopalakrishnan.