IIT Ropar celebrates its 6th Annual Convocation
Rupnagar: The Indian Institute of Technology Ropar (IIT Ropar) celebrated its 6th Annual Convocation today at their permanent campus. Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Principal Advisor to Minister of Power, New & Renewable Energy, Government of India graced the occasion as the chief guest and delivered the convocation address. Prof. S.K. Das, Director IIT Ropar presided over the ceremony.
A total of 160 degrees were awarded this year. 118 B.Tech., 11 M.Tech., 18 M.Sc. and 13 PhD degrees were handed out to students. There was a 22 percent increase in the number of students graduating this year as compared to last year.
Tushar Agarwal, Department of Computer Science & Engineering received President of India Gold Medal amongst the graduating students of B. Tech this year. The Director Gold Medal was awarded to Swapnil Rai, Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Institute Silver medals were given to Abhiskek Kumar, B.Tech. Department of Electrical Engineering, Asheesh Kumar Sharma, M.Tech. Mechanical Engineering, Deeksha Suthar, M.Sc. in Chemistry Programme, Mohit Sood, M.Sc. in Physics Programme and Nihal Chand, M.Sc. in Mathematics Programme.
The department wise break up of data for total students graduated in 2017
S.no
Department
Number of Students
1
PhD
13
2
M.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering
11
3
M.Sc.
18
4
B.Tech. in Computer Science & Engineering
41
B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering
38
B. Tech. in Electrical Engineering
39
Total
160
Addressing the students at the Convocation, Prof. S.K Das, Director, IIT Ropar said, “This must be a red-letter day in your life, the culmination of long aspiration and hard work over years and years together. All students must understand that this success is the beginning of the lifelong learning process and the key to this learning is inquisitiveness that you can carry forward. You have achieved a lot but there are even higher peaks to be conquered. Whether it is excellence in profession, higher education or entrepreneurship, this country demands that as you are regarded the best in your domain, you should be the leaders in the respective domains.”
“We are happy to present degrees to 160 students this year. These students are the real stars and I would like to wish them the very best in their future endeavours.”, Prof. S.K Das added.
IIT Ropar has excelled over the past year in many areas like research, student and faculty achievements and international collaborations. The Institute has also seen a remarkable growth in terms of the faculty and student strength.
During the past year, the Institute saw an increase in student strength from 820 to 1120 and an increase in faculty strength from 84 to 115, there by maintaining a very healthy student-faculty ratio of around 1:10. IIT Ropar has always been known for the quality of research. As per a recent data, this year, the Institute’s average citations per paper stood at 8.23, which is the highest among all new IITs, thereby reiterating the quality of research being undertaken by the Institute.
The Institute is proud of the various awards won by the students and faculty this year, a number of them being national awards. The foremost of them are “NASI-SCOPUS young scientist award” awarded to Dr. Rajendra Srivastava of Department of Chemistry in the field of Chemistry, “NASI young scientist platinum jubilee award” awarded to Dr. Durba Pal, in the field of Biomedical, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology and Prof. S. S. Sandhu Medal by Indian Chemical Society, Kolkata awarded to Dr. Narinder Singh in the field of Environmental and Analytical Chemistry.
PhD students, Mr. Gurvinder Pal Singh Sodhi, received the best presentation award in the International Conference on Innovative Engineering Materials (ICIEM 2017) held at Philadelphia, USA, and Mr. Navin Kumar, PhD scholar from Physics department, secured the prestigious Bhaskara Advanced Solar Energy (BASE) internship.
The performance during placements has been constantly improving over the past couple of years. An overwhelming response from the industry in general and core industries in particular was seen at campus recruitments, resulting in 83.16% of our students being placed this year. The companies participating in the campus recruitments included Amazon, Microsoft, Arista Networks, Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Larsen & Toubro, Cognizant, Nagarro, Nucleus Software, HCL, etc.
Addressing the graduating students Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Principal Advisor to Minister of Power, New and Renewable Energy, Government of India said, “I offer my heartiest congratulations to each of you for successfully crossing this stage and very best wishes for a meaningful future. I specially congratulate the medal and prize winners who have worked hard and have succeeded. You are fortunate to graduate at a time when our nation is poised to grow out of its past and become a stronger nation. Each of you will indeed enjoy this, but have a special role to play and owe great responsibility in getting us there.
“You indeed are getting into fast changing world. Your ability to learn new things, train and adapt yourself quickly, can get you to lead the world.”, he added
Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala also mentioned the importance of addressing basic problems of the nations like water and energy. He said that, “One of the biggest problems that we will face in near-future is that of ‘water’. Availability of water will be probably the world’s biggest challenge. And India will face this faster than others. The only way out will be to recycle every drop that we use, preserve water and clean water. It would require technological breakthrough and some serious management effort.”
“Similarly, renewables are likely to become the dominant source of power. Solar and wind, rather than fossil-fuels will become dominant. You will see this in the next ten to fifteen years. You have to watch it happen and facilitate this. There is still a lot to be done in this area. And you can dream of fossil free future, probably the only way the earth will have a future. You need to make this happen soon.” Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala added
Established in 2008, IIT Ropar has grown to its prominence nationally and internationally through its research initiatives. Striving to be the leader in promoting quality education through its cutting-edge research innovations and unique hands on engineering curriculum.
Achievements for 2017:
· Student strength increased from 820 to 1120 and faculty strength jumped from 84 to 115 in 2017. Undergraduate intake jumped from 155 to 260 in 2017
· The Institute crossed the mark of 1000 publications in the Scopus database. The average citations per paper was recorded at 8.23, which is the highest among all new IITs
· The Institute started the B. Tech. program in Chemical Engineering, M. Tech. programs in Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Engineering
· The Institute has successfully conducted 6 GIAN Courses in 2016 on Mechanobiology, Robotic Systems, Data Driven Kinematic Synthesis, Biomimetics, Surface Engineering, Fatigue Mechanics with experts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, State University of New York (SUNY), Ohio State University, Fracture Labs, LLC [United States of America], University of Gävle [SWEDEN], Swinburne University [Australia]
· 83.16% of students being placed in 2017. More than 90% of Computer Science Engineering, close to 80% of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering students have been placed through campus interviews. An average package of about 11.48 lakhs per annum offered to students this year
· “Summer Visitation Program” started through which the institute has given full financial support to 10 faculty members of the institute to visit some of the finest research labs of the world for a period of 5-10 weeks
· This year IIT Ropar gave a big push towards international collaborations and interactions. Two institute level delegations visited Australia, Singapore, Canada, US and Germany establishing contact with 13 universities and research labs in these countries. MOUs were also signed with the institutes for research collaborations and exchange programmes