Hyderabad: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad hosted its 6th Annual Convocation on Saturday (5 August 2017) at its permanent Campus in Kandi, Sangareddy District, Telangana State. IIT-Hyderabad has crossed another milestone this year by awarding 473 degrees.
A total number of 211 BTech students including 34 female candidates were awarded degree. A total number of 40 students were awarded PhD degree. A total number of 141 students were awarded MTech degree.
Ms. Shobana Kamineni, President, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), and Executive Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited, and Prof. Jun Murai, Dean, Faculty of Environment and Information studies, Keio University, Japan, graced the occasion as the Chief Guests and delivered the Convocation addresses. Mr. B.V.R. Mohan Reddy, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Hyderabad, and Executive Chairman – CYIENT presided over the Convocation. Prof. U.B Desai, Director, IIT Hyderabad, delivered the Institute report.
Delivering the Convocation Address, Ms. Shobana Kamineni, President, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) & Executive Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited, said, “We are in the midst of a very vibrant age; an era that is not just kind to dreamers, but one that actually celebrates them. Around the globe, we are witnessing a surge of creativity, innovation and original thinking. The world is busy ideating on ways to make life better and easier.”
“Hundreds of cities are aspiring to become smart and there is a move to reverse urban decay. If more than half the country’s population start living in our cities in the next two or three decades, the country will need all the engineering we can get to build the required infrastructure”.
“Today we dare to dream of space travel; we find no dissonance with the idea of driverless cars, or complex surgery being performed by highly intelligent machines. We accept these fantastic ideas because we have already seen the magic of technology. 140 characters can galvanize the world, the most obscure piece of information can be found in seconds and we have actually reached Mars,” she said.
Delivering the Convocation Address, Prof. Jun Murai, Dean, Faculty of Environment and Information studies, Keio University, “Under the leadership of Prof. Desai, IIT-Hyderabad has built a lot of relationships with Japan including with Keio University, which is the oldest University in Japan.”
\He spoke about the lessons learn from disasters such as the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that resulted in large-scale devastation and loss of life.
Prof. Jun Murai said, “Digital technologies are supporting all areas of our life, our society and our industry. Therefore, two things are really important – the rapid deployments of Smart Phones and Internet of Things(IOT).”
Multi-disciplinary study to connect the networks to each areas of study is important, he added.
Delivering the Institute Report, Prof. U.B. Desai, Director, IIT Hyderabad said, “This convocation is very special because IIT-Hyderabad has entered its 10th year. We are graduating the first batch of Executive M.Tech, the first batch of B.Tech. in Engineering Physics, and 40 Ph.Ds. To date, we have graduated nearly 130 Ph.D. students.”
IT-Hyderabad has 181 faculty across 14 departments, total student strength of 2,328 students (1847 male students and 481 female students). As many as 958 students are B.Techs in eight engineering departments, 121 M.Sc students in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics, 459 M.Tech. students in 8 engineering departments, 10 M.Phil students in Liberal Arts, 32 M.Des. students in the Department of Design, and 748 Ph.D. students across all departments.
“I must mention here that faculty of Liberal Arts has received research funding from Indian Council of Medical Research, Swedish Research Council, and Wellcome Trust, UK. More importantly, several of these projects are in collaboration with faculty from science and engineering,” added Prof. Desai.
IIT-Hyderabad has over 50 MoUs with universities in Japan, US, Canada, Australia, Europe, Taiwan, and many other countries. The Institute is in the process of signing an MoU with CERN, Switzerland. The Institute has a Joint Ph.D. program with Swinburne University, Australia and is planning for a Joint Ph.D. program with National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan and Ritsumekan University in Japan.
Mr. B.V.R. Mohan Reddy, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Hyderabad, who presided over the Convocation, noted that IIT-Hyderabad got recognized, as per MHRD rankings 2017, as one of the Top 10 engineering institutes of India in less than 10 years since its inception.
