At 52nd Convocation of IIT Delhi Over 2000 Students Awarded Degrees

New Delhi: IIT Delhi held its 52^nd Convocation on November 13^th, 2021. Ms Padmasree Warrior, a distinguished IIT Delhi alumna and Founder & CEO, Fable was the Chief Guest at the Convocation. Ms Warrior is also Board member of Microsoft and Spotify and former CEO, NIO U.S.; former CTO, Cisco & CTO, Motorola.

At the 52^nd Convocation, 2117 graduating students were awarded degrees and diploma.

At the Convocation, meritorious graduating students were awarded the President’s Gold Medal (Ananye Agarwal, B. Tech in Computer Science & Engineering), Director’s Gold Medal (Shreyansh Chanani, B.Tech. in Production and Industrial Engineering), Perfect Ten Gold Medal (Ajmera Sanketh Kumar, M.S.(R) in Mechanical Engineering; Aditya Singla, M.Tech. in Thermal Engineering and B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering), Institute Silver Medal and the awards instituted by donors. (Detailed Medal List; Donor Awards List Attached)

Addressing the graduating students, Ms Padmasree Warrior congratulated them and said, “The future that we will inhabit will be planned and built by YOU. As technologists graduating from one of top Institutions of Technology in the world, you must ask yourself – what will you build and how will you lead us into the future with the power of technology? Technology has always played an important role in our society.”

Ms Warrior while addressing the students virtually further said, “We all know that the curriculum at IIT is tough. It is rigorous (as the professors like to say), but brutal (as the students often call it). This brutal rigor taught me how to problem-solve from first principles – a great skill for engineers and technologists to possess. If you are confident about problem-solving capabilities, you can be successful in any role in any industry, which in turn boosts your self-confidence. This may sound simplistic, but trust me, problem-solving skills come in handy to build resilience in your life.”

She added, “With your IIT education, you are now ready to take on the world. I won’t sugarcoat this address and tell you that the path ahead will be easy. Success is never easy. It will often take a lifetime of hard work, personal sacrifices, and dealing with frustrations. Take this as fundae from one of your seniors… after years of coping with the brutal exams at IIT Delhi – the life ahead will be a piece a cake”.

Dr. Rajagopala Chidambaram, Chairperson, Board of Governors, IIT Delhi and former Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India addressing the graduating students said, “India of our dreams, particularly of young people like you, is an India which is economically developed – where the Human Development Index is high; an India which is scientifically advanced, with a Knowledge Economy, and an RDI Ecosystem, with excellence in basic research, applied research, technology development, R&D-led Innovation, backed by high-quality manufacturing skills. We also want an India which is militarily strong. In all these areas, IIT Delhi is contributing in exceptional measure. You, young people, who are graduating today must also have an appetite for risk-taking.”

Dr. Chidambaram further said, “The IIT system has, as we all know, a very high global brand equity; and among the IITs, IIT Delhi is ranked at the top. We have world-class faculty, who continue to get recognitions from within India and abroad. We have leading research workers in IIT Delhi in various advanced research areas in the engineering sciences and others, ranging from pure sciences to Artificial Intelligence. We need close interaction among our academic institutions mission-oriented agencies and other national labs. This is being achieved by IIT Delhi, credit for this goes to the leadership provided by Prof. Ramgopal Rao. In this context, I am very happy that Defence Research & Development Organization has set up a Centre in IIT Delhi. Online learning initiatives have seen a massive surge during the covid pandemic. I am very happy that, at IIT Delhi, more than 1400 courses have been digitized in the last 18 months. Under the e-VIDYA initiative, jointly with 5 ed-tech companies, over two dozen online certificate programmes have been launched.”

At the 52^nd Convocation, Prof V. Ramgopal Rao, Director, IIT Delhi presented the Director’s report. Presenting the report, Prof Rao said, “When the COVID-19 pandemic started leading to a nationwide lockdown, the Institute swiftly adapted the teaching to the online mode. Sufficient outreach, surveys and initiatives were taken to support the students who were forced to continue study in the digital mode. The Senate provisioned the online doctoral defense for Ph.D. students so that minimal disruption takes place to their academic progress and completion. Academic administration was completely brought online so that students can manage their academic activities with minimal disruption, even from their homes. Library resources were made available outside the campus through internet.”

IIT Delhi research groups and start-ups created significant impact in our fight against COVID-19 touching more than a million lives. Multiple diagnostic and protective solutions were brought to the masses by the efforts of the IIT Delhi community through licensing route or by its incubated start-ups.

While highlighting the Research & Development activities at the institute, Prof Rao said, “In the last financial year, despite the Covid caused disruptions, our faculty members received approvals for a total of 253 sponsored projects with a total value of Rs 206 Crores. Industrial consultancy is another significant area of activity in the Institute. The nature and extent of the industrial consultancy projects undertaken by the Institute is an index of its credibility with the industry and other institutions. In the last financial year, a total of 342 consultancy projects were sanctioned with a total value of Rs 34.11 Crores including 51 projects undertaken through FITT. Institute also received 19 high value projects valued more than Rs 1 Crore each.”

Speaking about the soon to be inaugurated IIT Delhi’s Research and Development Park, Prof Rao said, “Institute’s Corporate Relations Division has been spearheading the ongoing invitation drive extended to corporates for investing in research and innovation park at IIT Delhi and educating them about the world-class infrastructure having facilities for design and development of advanced and potential for co-creating disruptive & innovative technologies. This has indeed garnered lot of interest which is amply visible in the successful conversions like DS Group, DUV Healthcare, Clensta, etc”.

At the 52^nd Convocation, IIT Delhi also presented coveted Alumni Awards 2021 to its esteemed alumni in Teaching & Research, Entrepreneurship, Corporate Leadership categories. The Distinguished Alumni Award (DAA) was presented to six alumni, the Graduates of Last Decade (GOLD) Award to four alumni and the Distinguished Alumni Service Award (DASA) one alumnus. (Alumni Awards 2021 List Attached)

Mr Anant Yardi, President and Founder of Yardi Systems, and a 1968 batch IIT Delhi alumnus, has agreed to gift USD 10 million (Rs ~75 Cr) to IIT Delhi. Yardi Systems, founded in 1982 by Anant, is a leader in real estate asset and property management solutions and the largest real estate software provider in North America.

Mr Yardi’s gift would enable IIT Delhi to create state-of-the art laboratories and attract talented students and researchers to its newly established School of Artificial Intelligence (ScAI). The School of Artificial Intelligence was set up by the Institute for the express purpose of expanding opportunities for fundamental, and inter-disciplinary research, innovation, and post-graduate education in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, and Data Science technologies.