380 students graduate during IIITDM Kancheepuram’s 10th Convocation

CHENNAI : A total of 380 students graduated during the tenth convocation of Indian Institute of Information Technology Design and Manufacturing Kancheepuram (IIITDM Kancheepuram), a Central Government ‘Institute of National Importance’ located near Chennai, Tamil Nadu. This includes six PhDs, 53 M. Techs, 110 Dual Degrees and 211 B. Tech degree recipients.

The Institute was established with a unique mandate of excelling in IT and IT-enabled design and manufacturing pedagogy and research. In line with the same, IIITDM Kancheepuram offers unique design-centric engineering programs with specializations in mechanical, electronics and computer engineering. Towards meeting industry demands, the Institute also launched B. Tech and M. Tech level programmes in ‘Smart Manufacturing.’

The convocation was held in physical mode today (10th September 2022) in the presence of chief guest Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Hon’ble Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Government of India, Prof. S. Sadagopan, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIITDM Kancheepuram, Prof. DVLN Somayajulu, Director, IIITDM Kancheepuram, faculty, staff, students and parents.

The entire convocation can be viewed on the following link – https://youtu.be/fFyRDpxpbGM

Convocation Booklet can be viewed and downloaded from the following link – https://drive.google.com/file/d/13Mcy2AI6uWVBeC4D5MmKlt8xZb9bjLwC/view

The Hon’ble Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs laid the foundation stone of Institute Auditorium and inaugurated the Centre of AI, IoT & Robotics. She also unveiled the Student’s Wall of Honour which includes gold medal winners of all the previous convocations.

Addressing the convocation, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Hon’ble Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Government of India, said, “I want to underline the fact it is this India’s higher education which has contributed to the best of company executives. Globally, 58 top-notch company CEOs are Indian in origin and India-education and they are in 11 such companies that are multinational, whose collective revenue is over 1 trillion and 4 trillion in turnover. Therefore, they could not have had less education than others. In fact, they have had better education from our higher education institutions. But that is not to say nothing needs to be done. We have to constantly keep upgrading the teaching-learning experience and therefore it is important for us to be continually on the top.”

Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman added “25 per cent of all start-ups in Silicon Valley are managed by people of Indian origin. India, of course, now has 100 unicorns because the start-up ecosystem has built up so well. Their market value of these companies are US$ 250 billion and they have collectively raise from the market $63 billion. Even as some of you would want to seek jobs, I am those for those of you who want to become entrepreneurs and create jobs for other, it is not a worrisome world. There may be health risk but it is possible for you all to become entrepreneurs.”

Noting that several industries were on the Board of the Institute, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman added, “What we need to do know is to make sure we understand what the Industry needs and be able to manufacture for ourselves and the world. That is why Industry leaders sitting on the boards of such wonderful institutions which draw talent and bring in the best of skills and abilities and which have rigourous teaching-learning experiences is very important. Because, we need to produce our students to be capable of getting into industry, which serves India’s development goals. This Synergy is now, I think, much achieved by most of the institutions because Government speaks to them and they give inputs.

Further, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman said, “According to UN Population Statistics of 2019, the Working Age population of India will overtake China in 2028, meaning we will have more working-age population people in India by 2028 even much more than China. And that working age population will reach 65 percent of our population by the year 2036 and it will stay at that level of 65 percent till 2047…If your working age population, meaning those who have graduated from institutions like this, contribute to about 65 percent of the entire population, the productivity, the contribution to the GDP are going to be much higher than what the world can see today.”

This Institute has been at the forefront of offering programs in tune with the needs of the industry. Some of the unique programs that the Institute offers include B. Tech in Computer Science and Engineering with specialization in Artificial Intelligence and M. Tech in CSE with specialization in Data Science and AI, among others.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof. S. Sadagopan, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIITDM Kancheepuram, said, “Since its humble beginning in 2007, the Institute has grown sizeably over the past 15 years with a student strength of around 1600, 80 faculty, and 50 administrative and technical staff! The purpose of an educational Institute is the creation of skilled human resources and I am happy to see growth of the Institute both in terms of numbers and the diversity of academic and research programs offered at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral levels.”

Prof. S. Sadagopan added, “For most of us, this is even more special for the simple reason: this is an entirely in-person Convocation after the two-and-a-half-year period of the pandemic.  I am sure all the graduands, their families, and the Institute fraternity are happy to be functional in the in-person mode.” We are thankful to Ministry of Education and state administration for their kind support in organizing the convocation.

CAMPUS PLACEMENTS & INDUSTRIAL CONSULTANCY

Presenting the annual report of the Institute, Prof. DVLN Somayajulu, Director, IIITDM Kancheepuram, said, “In this crystal jubilee year, we (IIITDM Kancheepuram) have attained 97% of placements with a highest CTC of Rs. 32 lakh per annum and average CTC of Rs. 10.06 lakh. Our chief recruiters have been Amazon, AMD, Ericsson, Google, L&T, MathWorks, Microchip, Samsung, and Zoom India, etc.”

Prof. DVLN Somayajulu added, “In 2021-22 we have received Rs. 4.39 crore rupees as sponsored research grants taking our total funding for research and consultancy to Rs. 26.14 crore. The departments of Mechanical Engineering and Electronics and Communication Engineering have received FIST grants of around 2.30 crore sponsored by DST, Government of India. In addition to several national and state scholarships, Saint- Gobain India has signed an eight-year agreement with the institute to provide scholarships to 40 girl students pursuing B. Tech. Three young faculty members got an opportunity to do high end research with worldwide top rank universities such as Stanford University through SIRE fellowship which is sponsored by Science and Engineering Research Board under DST.

Prof. DVLN Somayajulu said, “Looking back to the last 15 years since the inception, as an Institute of National Importance, we create a new generation of engineers who are skilled in integrating design, business, humanities, and management concepts with their core engineering fundamentals. The design spine of our undergraduate curriculum makes our students to be designers trained to be product developers.”