Rapid advances in the global business environment are changing the landscape of today's workspace which in turn is putting pressure for having highly skilled Human Resources who have the knowledge and competence to make the best use of the resources by continuous innovations. Higher education institutions not only contribute skilled human resources to business, but also in various intangible ways.

Students churned out of the relatively static and less dynamic academic system are poorly equipped to meet the fast changing industry requirements and due to this often companies have to drain on their precious resources (time, energy & money) in providing training to new hirees. As industries look at academic institutions to mobilize suitable manpower, academic world is feeling the pressure to update its academic system to be in tune with the industries.

Universities and industry, which for long have been operating in separate domains, are rapidly inching closer to each other to create synergies. The constantly changing management paradigms, in response to growing complexity of the business environment, today, have necessitated these two to come closer. A productive interface between academia and industry at present knowledge economy is a critical requirement. Failure to recognize each other's role will reduce the interface between institute and industry; and it can potentially give rise to mismatch between demand and supply of manpower, which, in turn, can cause disruption in the job market. Also, industry-academia collaboration, the world over, is extremely limited and has not been harnessed to its full capacity.

Hence, there is an urgent need to take proactive steps to enhance the employability of Students and make them industry ready. Therefore it is the high time when industry requires to ploughs back its experience into the Academia continuously for re-orienting the teaching pedagogy and program of study to enrich. Deepening of industry-academia interaction will enhance the quality of teaching and research in the universities and production output and processes in the industry.

The Industry Academia summit 2012 a new concept of Industry-Academia integration is a joint initiative by the Placement Coordination Cell, Banaras Hindu University & Faculty of Management Studies, Banaras Hindu University with a view to focusing on best contemporary industry practices. The summit aims at bringing together Top management professionals from industries, Academicians, Researchers & Students of diverse fields together to discuss the dimensions of academia-industry partnership today and exchange ideas, practice & experiences on different aspects of Industry-Academia integration.