British Council draws younger generation to UK through Bloodhound tech project

NEW DELHI: It is part car and part aircraft and is designed to go at a staggering 1,000 miles per hour (just over 1600 km). As a part of its Great Britain campaign, The British Council showcased an engineering marvel, the Bloodhound show car – a mix of car and aircraft technology – in New Delhi recently. Born out of a partnership with 200 corporates like Tata Steel and Tata Motors and institutions in the UK, Bloodhound is a science and technology project and has innovation and education at its core.
The supersonic car can cover a mile in a mere 3.6 seconds and was unveiled by Richard Everitt, director, education, British Council India, Iain Gray, CEO of UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK and Bloodhound SSC pilot wing commander Andy Green.

“We are running the Great Britain campaign which showcases UK’s education system to India to attract more Indian students to the UK. We want more Indian students studying in the UK,” said Everitt. The Bloodhound car and the Bloodhound Project represent education, technology and innovation at its best, he added.

“There are a range of universities directly involved in the project. We’re showcasing the model car to demonstrate the world class nature of UK education,” he said.

The Bloodhound SSC project aims to inspire the younger generation to pursue higher education courses in science, engineering, technology and mathematics and later careers in those fields. Around 5,600 UK schools and universities are involved in the project. It is the largest engineering project with the largest number of participants ever, said Green, adding the car is Part F1 technology, part jet fighter,and part space rocket.

The Bloodhound SSC project will be followed by the Education UK exhibition as part of the ‘Great Britain’ campaign. Around 401 part scholarship awards are available this year worth 1.51 million pounds for areas ranging from engineering to biosciences across 57 institutions in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.