Although China was also being considered for the project, MIT has informally agreed to set up Media Lab Asia (MLA), the second such project outside the USA after Media Lab Europe (MLE), in India, sources in the ministry of Information Technology here said. The location of its centre, which is linked to the presence of top-class academic and research institutes in a city, is however yet to be decided, they said.

MLA that would address three grand challenges - education, health and financial sustainability - is aimed at making sound education accessible to all children, providing state-of-the-art public health tools and medical information to all, and creating a culture of micro-enterprise, in which all have the knowledge, opportunity and access needed to start and run their own small businesses.

"Our trip is still exploratory," team member Mr Neil Gershenfeld, who arrived here on Monday morning, told IANS. Others in the team led by MITML's Academic Director Alex Pentland are Mr Barry Vercoe, Mr Michael Best, Mr Deb Roy and Mr Vikram Kumar, all from MITML.

The team will visit Lucknow, Kanpur, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and meet IT minister Mr Pramod Mahajan, senior government officials, scientists, people from the entertainment industry and the financial sector. The plan also includes meetings with chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

The current visit is a part of the process taken up by a joint Indo-US task force on the issue to formulate a proposal, which would be submitted to the government by the first week of next month, sources said. Signing of an MLA agreement between the two countries is also planned.

The team's tour follows the visit of a three-member Indian team led by Mr S Ramakrishnan, senior director in the IT ministry, to the US last month to discuss MLA. Other members were Mr Sanjay Dhande, dean, research and development, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur and Mr Prakash Javdekar, a member of MLA'S screening committee.

Visits have also been planned to IITs in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, the National Center for Software Technology (NCST) and ICICI Ltd in Mumbai, Electronics Research and Development Center of India (ER&DCI) in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, Center for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) and a private company Geometric Software in Pune, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, Bhatkhande School of Music in Lucknow and a few NGOs that include one floated by IIT Kanpur to popularise electronic gadgets for the handicapped in rural areas, according to sources.

Sponsors from the IT industry, which would be a prime stake-holder in the venture, would also be eligible for the Intellectual Property (IP) generated at MLA and MLE free of license and royalty fees, the sources added.MLA would comprise, in addition to a central lab, a number of regional labs, where companies, non-government organizations (NGOs), students, and community members could discuss their needs, problems and probable solutions. MLA would enable India envision tomorrow's technology, products, concepts and services and provide a competitive edge to address global markets, senior IT ministry officials said.

The initial goal of the MLA project, the sources said, was to generate $1 billion in direct funding over a period of ten years. The Indian government is expected to pay $200 million, much of it as seed money to attract other investors, and $400 million is to come from private foundations, companies and individuals. The rest would be procured from governmental bodies like the World Bank, as per initial plans.

At maturity, the research and development activities of the regional media centers are expected to generate between $30-60 million annually, and India has suggested an initial budget of $10 million for the first year of the project.

MITML, since its inception in 1985, has 40 registered patents to its credit. Its contributions include advances in electronic paper, new forms of data hiding, wearable computers, musical jackets and quantum computing. Its annual budget is about $30-35 million.