IIT Jodhpur celebrates 7th Convocation with total 404 Graduating Students

JODHPUR: A total of 404 students graduated during the Seventh Convocation of the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur held today (19th December 2021) in the physical and virtual presence of Faculty, Staff, Students, Parents and eminent personalities. This included 27 Ph.D. scholars, 130 M.Tech., 67 M.Sc., and 180 B.Tech. students. The Seventh Convocation of IIT Jodhpur also witnessed the first-time award of degree for candidates from multiple emerging postgraduate disciplines including M. Tech in Artificial Intelligence (AI); Advanced Manufacturing and Design (AMD); Thermo Fluids Engineering (TFE); Cyber Physical System (CPS); Sensors and Internet of Things (SIoT); Data and Computational Sciences (DCS), and Materials Engineering (MT).

Also, a total of 59 B.Tech. students will be conferred with specialization/minor area certificates in Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Thermofluids Engineering, Robotics and minors in Entrepreneurship and Management along with their degrees.

Delivering his welcome address, Prof. Santanu Chaudhury, Director, IIT Jodhpur, said, “IIT Jodhpur has embarked on an ambitious mission to establish itself as one of the top destinations in the country for a wholesome education with the right mix of flexible academics, cutting-edge research, curiosity-driven innovation and a curriculum built on technology foresight. I am glad to say that IIT Jodhpur’s curriculum resonates with National Education Policy 2020 guidelines”

Prof. Chaudhury in his speech also briefed the various initiatives taken by the Institute during the last one year:

Strategic Plan of IIT Jodhpur 2021:

Responding to the changing landscape of the technology, economy, and society, IIT Jodhpur has adopted a new vision, mission and strategic plan in the year 2021

New Vision: “A future-driven institute for nurturing excellence of thought; generating, preserving and imparting knowledge; and using transformational technologies/interventions with multidisciplinary approach for responding to societal challenges and aspirations.”

Key mission:

Move towards a high-quality, futuristic educational and research ecosystem.

Develop socially responsible faculty, students, and future leaders, committed to create a self-reliant India.

Identified Goals

Curriculum, pedagogy, research, outreach, Collaboration, Industry Connect Financial plan, infrastructure, student lifecycle, agile organization

School of AI and Data Science

Under the aegis of the School of AIDE, a number of Centers of Excellence for focused transdisciplinary Research have been initiated. The same are:

Center for Brain Science

Center for Computational and Mathematical Economics

Center for Intelligent Infrastructure

Center for AI for Integrative Precision Medicine

Approval from Ayush Ministry to set up a centre on AyurTech with a financial layout of Rs.10 crores

A Diploma Programme has also been starting on Data Engineering and Computational Science

Post-Doctoral Fellowship

As part of IITJ’s celebration of 75th year of India’s Independence (Bharat ka Amrit Mahotsav), this year IIT Jodhpur has instituted a unique fellowship scheme in remembrance of Prof. Meghnad Saha, an eminent astrophysicist, to provide an option to young Ph.D.’s (belonging to SC /ST/ NCL-OBC/EWS categories) to have rich post-doctoral research and teaching experience at IIT Jodhpur.

Academic Growth of IIT Jodhpur

In the present year Current student strength at IIT Jodhpur has increased from 2360 to 3209. The institute also has foreign students admitted in M.Tech. and Ph.D. programmes through Study-In-India and ASEAN fellowship schemes. Looking at Lifelong education for professionals more than 350 working professionals enrolled for academic programmes

Research and Innovation Ecosystem

The Institute currently has a total of 163 (projects Started from 07-12-2020 to 14-12-2021: 64) operational projects and 10 consultancy projects including some in partnership with industry and international agencies. A number of patents filed. One patent granted this year – joint initiative between IITJ and AIIMS

Innovation EcoSystem: Section 8 Companies

IITJ TISC the umbrella incubation center of IITJ has also been incorporated as Section-8 Company, with a mandate to incubate Deep-Tech startups along with the aim of developing a vibrant entrepreneurship ecosystem in the institute and the larger region in the state of Rajasthan. IITJ TISC received the coveted BioNEST grant from Biotechnology Industry Research Assistant Council (BIRAC) to set up a Bio Incubator which gained the distinction of becoming the first instance of a Bio Incubator in the state of Rajasthan. Bionest incubator is being set-up at TISC. Presently, 23 innovators (pre-indubates and start-up’s) are working in TISC.

iHub Drishti, the Technology Innovation Hub (TIH) at IIT Jodhpur, is a section 8 company, established under National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical System (NM-ICPS) in 2020. iHub Drishti is the point of convergence between industry and academic community in the country for computer vision (CV), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). The hub has initiated (i) Technology development projects in Vision for Autonomous Systems, (ii) Computer Vision applications in healthcare as well as biosphere, (iii) Intelligent access to text books in National Digital Library, and (iv) Augmented reality.

JCKIC/JCKIF: The cluster has been established under the aegis of the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India. The main focus of the cluster is to provide a necessary platform to create synergy between all the stakeholders to make use of available knowledge as well as to develop advanced technologies, creative skills, state of the art infrastructure, and innovative environment in an organized manner so as to ensure sustainable and systematic development of the city of Jodhpur. The cluster at present is looking at the domains of: (1) Medical Technologies, (2) Documentation and Rejuvenation of Local Crafts (3) Innovation in the sphere of Water and Environmental issues (4) Computer Vision and AI based systems for City Traffic Management (5) Understanding flora, fauna, ecosystem and health issues in Thar.

IIT Jodhpur Technology Park: IIT Jodhpur promotes and supports the technology thoughts and actions towards the societal outreach. In fulfilment of the above, IIT Jodhpur has established the IIT Jodhpur Technology Park in the sprawling campus of IITJ having advanced facilities for industry engagement and scale-up of innovation capacity by leveraging the available intellectual capital at IIT Jodhpur. This has been created with the sole objective of providing technology innovations as a force to as many industries as possible for the economic value creation.

 

Human Resources

The number of faculty members has increased to 193 this year. Currently, we have 10 Professors, 09 Visiting Professors, 02 Professors of Practice, 46 Associate Professors, 126 Assistant Professors and 02 Young Faculty Associates, associated with these departments and schools. In last one year 33 new Faculty Members have joined the Institute. Flexible cadre system has enabled IIT Jodhpur to progress. We strongly feel that flexible cadre system is critical for growth of new IITs.

Faculty & Students Laurels

Prof. Mayank Vats, CSE, Fellow IEEE

Prof. Mitali Mukherjee, Fellow NASI

Dr. Rakesh K. Sharma & Dr. Mahesh Kumar

Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, London

The Master’s thesis work of Mr. Priyanshu Raj Shrivastava titled ‘Design and Development of Novel Jaw Rehabilitation Device for Temporomandibular Joint Disorder patients’ carried out under the supervision of Dr. Kaushal A. Desai, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been selected for the prestigious SITARE- Gandhian Young Technological Innovation Award (GYTI) 2021 awarded by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC).

Outreach

As a community project for ensuring Campus Sutainability IIT Jodhpur has worked in the area of providing Clean Drinking water to schools. To ensure clean water for drinking in primary and secondary schools of (i) Khadaat village in Sirohi district, (ii) Dhanuri village in Pindwara of Sirohi district, & (iii) Luna villages in Jhunjhunu district, during the pandemic time by designing and installing ultra-filtration membrane assisted adsorption based water purification units by the Institute. Drinking water in 25 schools in the district of Jodhpur was initiated.

Student Activities

The Institute has restructured the Student Gymkhana (SAC, ACAC, Student Senate, Hostels and Departmental Societies as constituents). Through this initiative the Students are empowered as equal partners in the development of the institute. The Institute has also created a representation in Joint Consultative Committee involving faculty, students and staff for consultative process regarding all community matters

Congratulating the graduating students, Prof. R. Chidambaram, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Jodhpur, said, “To the graduating class, I would like to say that it is your responsibility to make India a ‘Knowledge Economy’, a country with the ability to generate new knowledge. After the degrees you get today, you young people will start a new chapter in your careers, pursuing research, or acquiring additional academic qualifications, or in industries. I wish you all the best in your future careers and hope that your efforts will lead us to become a ‘Developed country’.”

Delivering the Chief Guest Address, Dr. Rajesh Gokhale, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India, said, “I congratulate all the graduating students on this special day, Based upon my professional experience, I can only tell you to ‘Create your own identity in this intertwined world’. My recommendation to all the IIT Jodhpur graduates is to go out and touch other people’s lives in whatever you do. Your intelligence, capacity to do work and the education you have earned empowers you to identify yourself with people who are not as fortunate. The way you react and interact are all very important in future. I am sure many of you will have an opportunity to transform this world and that’s the true essence of this graduation day! I wish you all the very best in the life ahead. ”

IIT Jodhpur has reached commendable heights. In the short span of time, it has become a fully residential campus with world-class academic and research facilities. With a vision to be a leader in science and technology, and education, the Institute is working tirelessly to build a strong foundation for a sustainable society.

In a video message shared to the Institute for the occasion, the Honorable Education Minister of India Shri Dharmendra Pradhan congratulated the graduating students and noted that despite being among the younger IITs in the country, IIT Jodhpur has emerged as a premier centre for engineering education and research. He emphasised that in line with the vision of the Government of India to impetus to entrepreneurial spirit and start-ups, IIT Jodhpur has set up the Technology Innovation and Startup Center to promote startups and programs funded on scientific discovery to solve critical, real world issues through transformative technologies. He said that “I am pleased to know that the institute has recently revamped its entire curriculum and pedagogical approach to make the programs more effective in terms of experiential learning of students and application of acquired knowledge and skills in line with the New Education Policy (NEP), 2020.