Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi held its eighth convocation

New Delhi: The Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi (IIIT-Delhi) held its 8th Convocation ceremony at the IIIT-Delhi premises. The ceremony celebrated the graduation of 284 students from its different courses and programmes. Ms. Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM, delivered the convocation address as the chief guest. Prof. Ranjan Bose, Director IIIT-Delhi, addressed the graduating students and also presented the Director’s Report for the year. The Chairman of the Institute Mr Kiran Karnik and the Chancellor, Honorable Lieutenant Governor, Mr Anil Baijal also graced the occasion with their presence.

At the occasion, Chief Guest Ms. Ghosh said “The need of the hour is learning, unlearning and re-learning. I am not going give you any advice from my past because that will already be outdated for your future; I will only ask you to remember two things. First, it takes a village to raise a child. The fact that you and me are here today is a result of hard work and sacrifices of our parent, guardian, family, friends and many more. Second, machines are going to replace human muscles but it will take machines a long time to replace Human empathy. So, if you want to figure out your place under the sun in this world of AI, Industry 4.0, and automation. You have to look inwards and see how you can become better human and that is going to differentiate you.”

Hon’ble Chancellor Shri Anil Baijal gave sound advice to the graduating students when he said, “My appreciation to you all on the hard work that everyone has put in for the growth of this institution. Today the graduates will join a large and prominent group of global alumni of this institute, which is known around the world in the field of technology. I can empathise with you, as you will receive the degrees and now will put it to test in the real world. At the same time, you will face many challenges and opportunities that you could have never imagined as the students. I am not scaring you but preparing you mentally for the challenging environment that exist outside your prestigious institute that you are about to leave.”

Chairman Mr Kiran Karnik shared words of wisdom and life lessons with the graduates and wished them best of luck. “It is a milestone in graduating student’s life. It is a proud moment to see students go out in the world and continue with research, or take up jobs or become entrepreneurs to create jobs. And I know in this batch we have all three categories being represented. But this is not where the learning ends, this is where the real learning begins. To be able to remain relevant, update and have a job ten years down the line, keep learning new things, because learning never ends”.

The Institute conferred 14 Ph.D., 155 B.Tech, and 115 M.Tech degrees, including one M.Tech Dual degree this year. The Institute’s placement record continues to be impressive – most programs have a 96% to 98% placement record. This placement season, a total of 443 offers were made at the Institute, which comprises 269 full-time job offers and 174 intern offers. “I am happy to observe that this year also a significant number of students have opted for higher education. About 25 students from the graduating batch are going for higher studies out of which17 are pursuing M. S. and 8 are pursuing Ph.D. Our students are going to top overseas universities like Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon University, University of California, John Hopkins University, Harvard University, University of Maryland, University of Virginia, University of Kansas, University of Texas at Austin, etc.,” said Prof Bose.

The medal winners during the convocation were Lamha Goel (Chancellor’s Gold Medal), Pulkit Goel (Best Academic Performance in B.Tech ECE), Gunkirat Kaur (All-round Performance Medal, CSE), Manasi Malik (All-round Performance Medal, ECE), Shubhankar R Butta and Parikshit Kumar Pruthi (jointly bagged Best B.Tech Project Award; Engineering Track), Sarthika Dhawan (Best B.Tech Project Award -Research Track), and Ekansh Sareen (Best B.Tech Project Award -Research Track), Sana Akhter (Best M.Tech Thesis Award, CB), Fatima Mumtaz (Best M.Tech Thesis Award, ECE), Vaibhav Garg (Best M.Tech Thesis Award, CSE), Shah Hitarth Dipesh bhai (Gold Medal for Excellent Academic Performance).

The Institute closed its admission process this month, and with this year’s admission, IIIT-Delhi’s student population has grown to2230 students, including 1564 B.Tech., 484 M.Tech., and 182 Ph.D. students.

This year, the Institute admitted 469 B.Tech Students in seven programs, 207 M.Tech students in three programs with seven different specializations, and 27 Ph.D. students. From this year, the Institute has added two new interdisciplinary programs, B.Tech. in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence and Ph.D. in Human Centered Design. Last year, IIIT-Delhi had added B.Tech in Computer Science and Biosciences, M.Tech in Computer Science with specialization in Artificial Intelligence, and Ph.D. in Social Science and Humanities.

In the last few years, IIIT-Delhi has become a synonym for a researched focused education, and this year was no different. In the previous year, the faculty members and students published 198 research articles, including 86 journal papers, 101 conference papers, and 11 book/book chapters. Faculty members have also received several awards and recognitions in the past year. Some of these are the Sun Pharma Research Award, DST Swarnajayanti Fellowship, elevation to Fellow of, International Association of Pattern Recognition, Visvesvaraya Young Faculty Fellowship, IEEE ICASSP Education Innovation Award, URSI Young Scientist Award, Google India Faculty Award, Bill and Melinda Gates Award, Royal Society’s Commonwealth Science Conference Follow-on Grant, DST Early Career Research Award, and several best paper/poster awards in some of the top international conferences.

This year the Institute received 36 research and consultancy projects sanctioned, for a total sanctioned amount of around Rs. 7.29 crores. Overall, there are about 103 active projects in the Institute. Its faculty members and research scholars have also filed for 5 Patents in the past year. The Ph.D. students received many prestigious fellowships last year, including one Prime Minister Fellowship.

While presenting the Director’s report, Prof. Bose further added, “A Center of Technology in Policing has been established at the Institute which will serve as an advanced resource hub in terms of related research, providing expert help in the prevention and investigation of cybercrime and skill enhancement. The Institute is also emphasizing research linked to sustainable development goals and creating a culture of innovation on campus leading to both intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship. In order to foster the spirit of innovation on campus, the Institute Innovation Council has been set up. Among other activities, the Institute Innovation Council has been organizing Ideas Pitching events by budding entrepreneurs, a wisdom talk series by leading experts in various domains with an aim to facilitate the reimagining of the IIIT-Delhi campus as a proving ground of innovative ideas.”

Talking about the Institute the Director shared that, “A Well-Being Cell has been created that focuses on providing counselling, psychological support and the holistic development to students. Several programs/workshops on relaxation, meditation, yoga, leadership, gender sensitization, and others are organized regularly to nurture the holistic wellness in the students. To strengthen our bonds with our alumni we have formally started the IIIT-Delhi Alumni Association and have launched the IIIT-Delhi Foundation USA, where we already have a functioning Bay Area Chapter.”