Gandhinagar: Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) hosted its 11th Convocation today by conferring degrees to a total of 397 students in an offline ceremony on the campus.
The Institute awarded degrees to 179 BTech students, 4 Dual Major BTech students, 1 BTech-MTech Dual Degree student, 3 BSc in Engineering students, 43 MTech students, 105 MSc students, 20 MA students, 39 PhD students, and 3 PGDIIT students. This year, 35 students received 50 medals; 33 gold medals, and 17 silver medals for excellence in various categories such as academics, outstanding research, innovation, social service, sports, arts & culture, and so on. This year, 12 students from the class of 2022 have completed their BTech in less semesters than the usual eight semesters.
Dr Krishnaswamy VijayRaghavan, Former Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India, graced the occasion as Chief Guest. In his brief yet motivating Convocation address to the graduating students, Dr Krishnaswamy VijayRaghavan urged the students to solve the challenges the world is facing in this era, including climate change, environmental degradation, energy needs, and pandemic, among others. Exhorting the young graduates to spare some time in their everyday lives to think and work towards some of such tasks, which may not feel urgent, but are important in the long run, he said, “The frenzy and crisis of today’s challenges give us not too much of time to think what is probably important, but not necessarily urgent. So we must partition some time in our day, week, or month, and in our conversations, to deal with such matters. You can think and work on ideas such as how our brain develops, how this consciousness comes about, what are futuristic sources of energy, and so on. Dialogues on these kinds of important issues and the learning from them will allow us to attend to the urgent challenges of tomorrow.”
Further in his address Dr VijayRaghavan said, “One of the most important learning one gets at the university is creating an environment of curiosity and investigation. As you move ahead in your life, it is important to realise that only the combination of interaction between people who are good in studies and the ones who are not so good in studies but other activities would allow the world to do well and come up with solutions. And I think you are provided with many such opportunities at IITGN. I am sure you all will go ahead and make IITGN and the country very proud of you.”
Earlier to the Chief Guest’s address, Prof Amit Prashant, Officiating Director, IITGN, congratulated the graduating students and medal winners and gave a brief overview of the Institute’s activities and achievements during the year. He highlighted a number of innovative steps by the Institute on the academic front, including the inauguration of Maker Bhavan to nurture innovative thinking and hands-on learning among students; setting up a Curiosity Lab that promotes research and outreach initiatives on Curiosity; introduction of the Director’s PhD Fellowship; opening up of admission to dual degree programmes in Computer Science and Engineering and Electrical Engineering from the academic year 2022-23; among others. In another path-breaking initiative, IITGN will now be providing an avenue for direct admission into our BTech programs without the need for appearing in JEE to those students who are selected for training camps of select International Olympiads.
Elaborating on the comprehensive faculty Startup Policy approved by Institute, Prof Prashant said, “IITGN has always nurtured an environment for innovation and enterprise; the faculty startup policy is aimed at encouraging and supporting faculty startups. One of the faculty members of IITGN, Prof Atul Bhargav has incorporated a company (a first faculty startup), which is being incubated at IIEC. The company has already received a commitment of investment from an Angel Investor. Another faculty member, Prof Sivapriya Kirubakaran received Biotech Ignition Grant (BIG) of Rs 50 Lakh for developing proof of concept for her Idea. She is also granted approval to incorporate her startup.”
In his congratulatory remarks for all the degree recipients and medal winners, Prof Amit Prashant, said, “The batch graduating today experienced difficult and life-changing experiences of COVID-19 Pandemic, but this early learning, I believe, has equipped you better to face the challenges of life. What you learnt at this institute is only the beginning of the learning process, and this has to go on further with the same vigour and determination, and indeed extended to several new dimensions so that you can gain success and serve the society at large.”
The entire event was also streamed online on IITGN’s YouTube channel.
IITGN Class of 2022 – placements and higher studies details:
Total 331 companies participated in the IITGN campus recruitment this year. Out of the total number of BTech students who had sought placements this year, 92% have been recruited in various sectors such as Software/IT, Engineering and Technology, Research, Management, Finance, Consulting and EdTech among others.
Ceremorphic Technologies Pvt Ltd, Deloitte, ICICI Bank, One97 Communications Ltd. (Paytm), Tiger Analytics and Aakash Educational Services Ltd are some of the organizations who made one of the highest number of offers on campus. DE Shaw offered the maximum package to BTech and Oracle offered highest to MTech students.
Total 15% of students from this graduating batch are expected to go for further studies and 21% of the graduating BTech students have opted to pursue higher studies. They will be pursuing MBA, MRes + PhD, MS, MSc, MTech, PGP and PhD in various top universities or institutes such as California Institute of Technology, USA; Carnegie Mellon University, USA; Georgia Institute of Technology, USA; Imperial College London; University of British Columbia, UK; IIMs; IITs; and so on.