Better interaction between Technical institutions and industry is the need of the hour. This will have great bearing on the Engineering Curriculum, exposure of industrial atmosphere to engineering students and subsequent placement of young graduating engineers in industries across the country. With the advent of globalization and opening up of Indian economy to outside world, competition among industries have become stiff. To solve their engineering problems they look up now to engg. Institutions. Similarly, there is an urgent need to prepare engineering students for jobs in multinational companies, by exposing them to newer technologies and engineering methodologies. These objectives can only be achieved well by bridging the gap between industry and the academic institute.There are numerous ways to build a Institute-Industry relationship , even if it is still strictly from an educational perspective.

Delivering guest lectures
Hiring of industry practitioners as part time faculty (visiting Fellows)
Recruitment opportunities
Site visits (tours)
Student projects
Summer vacation jobs/internships
Collaboration on course delivery - electronic discussion groups (include students and industry)
Support contests
Mentoring of projects
Site visits (tours)

Evaluation of prospective employees (the students)
Reverse Consultancy: Feedback on projects in the Institute. Smaller companies are certainly more open than larger more established companies (due to more internal policies in bigger companies).
To establish this a clear intellectual property agreement and an NDA (Knowledge Bank) must be put in place.
Organize student volunteers to support companies with testing and focus groups. This is a direct benefit to the company.
Provide leads on collaborative research proposals