Business Program Will Provide First International E-Business Training in United States
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 24, 2006
Kathleen McPartland
530-898-4260
Nitish Singh, Marketing
530-898-6090
Business Program Will Provide First International E-Business Training in United States
The Localization Program, headed by Nitish Singh, professor of marketing in the College of Business, California State University, Chico, has been awarded $502,239, from the Business International Education (BIE) Program, United States Department of Education.
The grant will help the College of Business implement the first comprehensive program in international e-business/localization in the United States. Working with strategic business partners, the program will provide education, training and outreach in international e-business to students and businesses.
The BIE grants are meant to promote the ability of U.S. businesses to prosper in an international economy. The CSU, Chico program is one of 25 recipients from an application pool of more than 100 grant applications.
Localization is design and development of multilingual Web sites and applications for different countries. CSU, Chico is one of the first universities in the United States to have a comprehensive 18-unit program related to localization and international e-business.
The grant includes approximately $20,000 per year for two years for student participation, travel and conference participation. Singh will be teaching classes related to Web localization and advanced topics in localization, and business professors Shekhar Misra and Matt Meuter will teach courses related to marketing.
The program is interdisciplinary in nature, with support from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures for language training, Management Information Systems, Regional and Continuing Education for conducting summer workshops, and the Center for Economic Development for outreach to small businesses in regional communities.
The program has already gathered support from businesses, including IBM and Hewlett-Packard, from the Globalization and Localization Association, the Localization Institute and Centers for International Trade Development in Chico, San Francisco and Sacramento.
Singh received his Ph.D. in marketing and international business from Saint Louis University. Most of his undergraduate and postgraduate work was done in India and the U.K. He currently teaches, researches and provides training and consulting in localization and international e-business. In 2005, with co-author Arun Pereira, Singh published "The Culturally Customized Web Site: Customizing Web Sites for the Global Marketplace."
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