IIIT Hyderabad celebrates 18th convocation

Hyderabad, August 10, 2019: International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad celebrated its 18th convocation ceremony on Saturday 10th August 2019. It graduated 477 students and a record number of 17 PhDs and 125 Masters with thesis.

A total of 117 companies registered for conducting placements and made job offers to these graduating students. The institute had 100% placements in the past year.

Dr M.V.S Valiathan was the chief guest at the ceremony and delivered the convocation address. Speaking on the occasion he said IT may be a recent phenomena, but Technology is very old.

Sushruta an ancient Indian physician known as the main author of the treatise The Compendium of Suśruta describes as many as 120 surgical instruments. It shows that there was an industry. This primitive medical technology is different from the modern information technology. IT which is about information and mathematical formulas is revolutionising, digitalising medicine. Now sophisticated technologies reveal and analyse what is there inside. Now medical data is interpreted to gain insights into the disease patterns, he observed.

Prof. Raj Reddy, Chairman, Governing Council of IIIT-Hyderabad presided over the ceremony. Speaking on the occasion he said the twenty years old IIIT Hyderabad is gifting quality education to the youth from all over India.

Patel Chaitanya Pankajkumar, B.Tech Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) was awarded the IIIT gold medal in recognition of his outstanding academic performance. The B.Tech Best All-rounder awards were presented to Sreya Mittal and Pranav Bhasin in CSE. Nine students received programme gold medals.

Shreya Mittal already got a job in Google in London and Pranav Bhasin got in Facebook in London.

Congratulating the graduating students and their parents, Prof. P J Narayanan said, “We encourage the new batch of students joining the ever-growing network of alumni to go out and conquer the world in their own unique ways and request them to keep a little bit of IIIT-H in their hearts and connect back with the institute of tomorrow to help push it forward. It has been our privilege to be a part of your lives.”

Research-led education with a special focus on undergraduate research at IIIT-Hyderabad has resulted in the institute contributing immensely to the society through technology solutions as well as individuals who are equipped to solve unstructured problems. The institute lays emphasis on an education that produces competent, creative, and caring individuals with a mature world-view.

Faculty and students together last year produced and presented 325 research papers in top conferences and journals.

The institute works with national organizations like the DRDO, ISRO, DAE, MCEME, NRDC, as well as the funding agencies like the DST, DBT, MeitY, MHRD, SERB, on sponsored research projects. New MoUs were signed for collaboration with the Airport Authority of India and the Survey of India recently he stated.

Pernod Ricard India Foundation (PRIF) gave us Rs. 3 crores to support six startups and to support research in areas with social impact. Ripple, a leading Silicon Valley financial technology company selected IIIT Hyderabad for a Blockchain Centre of Excellence with a total support of $1M US Dollars over 5 years he told the gathering in address

Speaking further Prof PJ Narayanan said an agreement was signed with TCS Foundation in September for the second phase of funding of the Kohli Centre on Intelligent Systems for the next 5 years.

The Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CIE) of IIIT Hyderabad Foundation completed a decade in 2018. It has been home to early stage startups from all parts of the country. It focuses on startups built on deep technology now. CIE has incubated 250+ startups and generated employment to 1400+ youth. With 92 incubated companies and about 430 employees working in them, CIE holds its position as the largest academic incubator in the country, Prof Narayanan added.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

• 477 graduates (B.Tech, B.Tech-MS Dual Degree, M.Tech, Master of Science by Research, PhD, and MSIT programmes - 134 UG, 249 PG and 94 MSIT). 17 PhDs and 125 masters with thesis.

• A total of 117 companies registered for conducting placements and made job offers to these graduating students. The institute had 100% placements in the past year. Our students are among the most sought after by the technology and product industry.

• Three regular and five adjunct faculty members joined the institute in the past year and six others have accepted the institute’s offers.

• IIIT Hyderabad took several steps in the past year along its path towards being a globally visible academic institution with positive impact on society. It started work with STAR Sports, Airport Authority of India, and Bharat Dynamics Limited – and many others – towards this.

• The Kohli Centre on Intelligent Systems remains the strongest AI group in the country and organised the first-of-its-kind workshop on AI for Journalists.

• Faculty, research students, research staff, and undergraduate students published about 325 papers in top conferences and journals last year, and several won best paper and poster awards in top national and international conferences.

• About 45 students including several undergraduate students travelled to conferences abroad to present their papers and be part of academic discussions. In all, 25 of PhD students have external competitive fellowships from TCS, Google, Intel, Visvesvaraya, etc., and several more from CSIR, UGC and other sources.

• The 18th edition of R&D Showcase held in February included 290 posters, demos and models for visitors to browse through. It saw participation from around 2500 visitors comprising of corporate R&D heads, students and faculty from engineering colleges, industry professionals and technology savvy general public.

• The Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CIE) of IIITH Foundation has been home to early stage startups from all parts of the country. It focuses on startups built on deep technology now. CIE has incubated 250+ startups and generated employment to 1400+ youth. With 92 incubated companies and about 430 employees working in them, CIE holds its position as the largest academic incubator in the country.

• Apart from B.Tech in ECE and CSE, IIITH’s trans-disciplinary programmes combine Computer Science and domains like Computational Natural Sciences, Computational Linguistics, and Humanities. A redesigned trans-disciplinary programme admitted 10 students this year.

• The institute admits undergraduate students through multiple channels including the JEE Mains, our own channel with interviews, Olympiad, etc. There’s also the Special Channel (SPEC) to increase diversity continued this year also. IIITH admitted a record number of 280 students this year.

• Faculty received numerous awards and recognitions in their fields. Prof. Vishal Garg received the first Arthur H Rosenfeld Urban Cooling Award from the Global Cool Cities Alliance in California, USA. Prof. C V Jawahar, has been elected a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineers (INAE) with effect from Nov 2018.

• The alumni have setup an active alumni scholarship program for needy students. The alumni have contributed about Rs. 81 lakhs for this in the past and 38 students have received financial assistance through the scheme. These financial support engagements will also follow the support-barter scheme.

• IIIT-H established a product lab under the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) in January 2018 in order to translate the IP from the research labs to market-relevant products and solutions that an entrepreneur or a corporate can take forward as a business. The TTO has identified over 200 industry relevant technologies that are now online at tto.iiit.ac.in. From those, 3 proof-of-concept products are being worked on, 5 Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) are working out of product labs, and 4 corporate innovation projects started in 2019. The TTO office also handles IP and patents. The institute has 2 granted patents already and, 29 in the process of filing.

• IIIT-Hyderabad Research Park Foundation, a section-8 company was formed to promote, develop, collaborate, and undertake technologies-based enterprises, industries, start-ups and research & development labs of the institute and to carry on, develop, create, establish, research commercialization activities across the globe to help companies projects and its activities.