​New York, Dec 22 (IANS) Social media giant Facebook has roped in 17 US universities to help it speed up technology projects by collaborating with faculties and labs.

Regina Dugan, Vice President of Engineering and Head of the social network's Building 8 (B8) group announced a Sponsored Academic Research Agreement (SARA) designed to

make it easier and faster for B8 to work with university researchers within weeks.

"Building 8" at Facebook is focused on building new hardware products to advance mission of connecting the world.

"The answer is out there … if we are humble enough to find it. The answer matters … when we ship it," Dugan wrote in a post on Wednesday.

"That's why the B8 team has hardware and software experts who have shipped more than 1.7 billion consumer devices in 170 countries. It's why we work in partnership with entrepreneurs, engineering teams, system integrators and businesses large and small-globally. And it's why we have built partnerships with many of the best research minds in the world," she wrote.

The 17 initial members of SARA include University of California-Berkeley, Georgia Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University and Stanford University.