Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
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| Indian Institute of Technology,Kanpur | |
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| Motto: | तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय (tamaso mā jyotirgamaya) "Lead me from darkness to light" |
| Established: | 1959 |
| Type: | Education and Research Institution |
| Chairman: | C.N.R. Rao |
| Director: | Sanjay Govind Dhande |
| Staff: | 1000 (approx) |
| Undergraduates: | 2,000 (approx) |
| Postgraduates: | 2,000 (approx) |
| Location: | Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Campus: | 1,055 acres (4.27 km2) |
| Website: | http://www.iitk.ac.in |
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (known as IIT Kanpur or IITK) is one of the Indian Institutes of Technology, set up in industrial city of Kanpur in 1960. IIT Kanpur has grown into one of the top technological institutes in India[citation needed], primarily focused on research in engineering and science, and the teaching of undergraduates.
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[edit] History
IIT Kanpur was established by an Act of Parliament in 1959. The institute was started in December 1959 in a room in the Canteen Building of the Harcourt Butler Technological Institute at Agricultural Gardens in Kanpur. In 1963, the Institute moved to its present location, on the historic Grand Trunk Road near the village of Kalyanpur in Kanpur district. During the first ten years of its existence, IIT Kanpur benefited from the Kanpur Indo-American Programme, where a consortium of 9 US universities namely M.I.T, University of California, Berkeley, California Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Carnegie Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, Ohio State University, Case Institute Of Technology and Purdue University helped set up the research laboratories and academic programmes.[1] The first Director of the Institute was Dr. P. K. Kelkar (after whom the Central Library was renamed in 2002).
Under the guidance of economist John Kenneth Galbraith, IIT Kanpur was the first institute in India to offer Computer Science education. The earliest computer courses were started at IIT Kanpur in August 1963 on an IBM 1620 system, a novelty then even in many North American and European universities. In 1971, the institute initiated an independent academic program, leading to M.Tech. and Ph.D. degrees.
[edit] Academics
[edit] Undergraduate
Undergraduate courses in engineering are traditionally 4 year Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) and 5 year Dual Degree Programme leading to the degrees of B. Tech- M. Tech are also offered in most of the departments along with the five year MSc programmes.
[edit] Postgraduate
Postgraduate courses in the engineering are 2 year Master of Technology (M.Tech) and PhD. The institute also offers MBA (2 years), M.Sc. (2 years) and M. Des programme. Admissions to M. Tech is made once a year through Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering.
[edit] Department
[edit] Engineering
1.Aerospace Engineering 2.Biological Sciences and Bio Engineering 3.Chemical Engineering 4.Civil Engineering 5.Computer Science and Engineering 6.Electrical Engineering 7.Industrial & Management Engineering 8.Materials & Metallurgical Engineering 9.Mechanical Engineering
[edit] Humanities
Humanities & Social Sciences
[edit] Management
Industrial & Management Engineering
[edit] Science
1. Chemistry 2. Mathematics & Statistics 3. Physics
[edit] Laboratories and other facilities
The campus is spread over an area of 4.3 square kilometres (1,100 acres). The Institute has a number of facilities, including the National Wind Tunnel Facility. Other large research centres include the Advanced Centre for Material Science, a Bio-technology centre, the Advanced Centre for Electronic Systems, and the Samtel Centre for Display Technology, Centre for Mechatronics, Centre for Laser Technology, Prabhu Goel Research Centre for Computer and Internet Security, Facility for Ecological and Analytical Testing. In addition, the various departments have their own smaller libraries. Apart from this, IIT Kanpur also has its own airfield, for flight testing and gliding activities.
P K Kelkar Library (Formerly Central Library) is an academic Library of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IITK) with a collection of more than 3,00,000 volumes and subscriptions to more than 1000 periodicals. The library was renamed to its present name in year 2003 after Dr. P K Kelkar, the first director of the institute. It is one of the best libraries in the nation housed in a three-story building with the total 6973 m². floor area. The Abstracting and Indexing periodicals, Microform and CD-ROM databases. technical reports, Standards and thesis are important part of this collection. Each year, on an average 4500 books and journal volumes are added to the collection. The total collection breakup is:
- Books (general and reference) 175,000
- Cartographic materials 500
- Machine-readable databases 25
- Periodicals (back volumes) 135,000
- Technical Reports 25,000
- IIT Kanpur thesis 15,000
- ISI standards 10,000
- Periodicals on current subscription 1,200
Following is the area-wise breakup of the Library's collections:
- Science 35%
- Technology 32%
- Humanities and Social Sciences 28%
- Other Area 5%
The Computer-Centre (referred to by the campus residents as "C-C") has about 100-150 Linux terminals and more than 100 Windows-NT terminals supported by the PARAM 10000 supercomputer, and is continuously available to the students for academic work and recreation. In addition, it hosts about 50 SUN workstations that are considered powerful workhorses for heavy computational tasks. It is a major intellectual, social and cultural hub in the campus. The IITs (and especially IIT Kanpur) and BITS Pilani are among the first large academic institutions in India to be extensively networked[citation needed], with an institute-wide LAN and Ethernet access to every student room in the residence halls.
A team of students, working under the guidance of faculty members of the institute and scientists of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are set to launch India's first nano satellite 'Jugnu'.[2]
[edit] Students
The undergraduate students at IIT Kanpur are selected through the Joint Entrance Examination of the IITs. The Post Graduate students are selected through various entrance exams. Master in Business Administration (MBA) - Joint Management Entrance Examination (JMET); Master of Science (M. Sc.) - Joint Admission Test (JAM); Master of Technology (M. Tech.) - Graduate Aptitude Test of Engineering (GATE). Presently, the institute has around 4,000 students, with an equal distribution of graduate and undergraduate students.
Students at IIT Kanpur reside in the hostels, or 'halls of residence', there are eight hostels (Hall 1-5, 7-9) for boys and two for girls, called GH-1 and GH-2.
The annual cultural festival is called Antaragni. The annual science and technology festival, Techkriti, is held at the end of February each year. The annual sports festival, Udghosh/IIT Kanpur Sportsmeet, is held around the end of September each year. All three are amongst the most popular college events in North India[citation needed].
The students also bring out a monthly campus newspaper, "Vox Populi", the college magazine "Meander" and the first of its kind science and technology magazine of the campus "NERD".
The Students Gymkhana, a democratically elected body, is the centre of all inter-hostel and intercollege activities that the students of IITK engage in. The Student Gymkhana has the following councils: The Presidential Council, The Games Council, The Cultural Council, The Science and Technology Council, The Films and Media Council.
The President heads the student body, followed by general secretaries for the subdivisions. A number of secretaries head the various smaller departments. The Students' Senate is a decision making body which is presided over by the Convener. It has elected members who hold one year terms in office. Typically, one student for every hundred is elected into the senate.
[edit] Students' research related activity
Recently there has been a surge in the project/research related activities among the students of IIT Kanpur. Research in IIT Kanpur is mediated by the Office of the Dean of Research and Development. Under the aegis of the Office the students are now regularly publishing the NERD Magazine (Notes on Engineering Research and Development) which publishes scientific and technical content created by students quarterly. Articles may be original work done by students in the form of hobby projects, term projects, internships, theses et cetera. Articles of general interest which are informative but do not reflect original work are also accepted.
Along with the magazine a student research platform called PoWER (Promotion of work Experience and Research) has also been initiated under the Office of Dean of Research and Development. Under it several independent student groups are working on various projects like the Lunar Rover for ISRO, Alternate Energy Solutions under the Group for Environment and Energy Engineering, programming solution in Indian languages, research in sports sciences et cetera. A budget of Rs 1 to 2 crore has been envisaged to support student projects that demonstrate technology.
[edit] SIDBI Innovation and Incubation Centre
IIT Kanpur has set up the SIDBI Innovation and Incubation Centre in collaboration with Small Industries development Bank of India (SIDBI) to foster innovation, research, and entrepreneurial activities in technology-based areas. SIIC provides a platform to business Start-ups to develop their ideas into commercially viable products.
[edit] Notable alumni
- Dr Chandra Kintala, Director, Yahoo! Labs, Bengaluru, India; Director(Retd.), Bell Labs, USA
- Ashoke Sen (String theorist)
- N.R. Narayana Murthy (founded the software corporation Infosys)
- Manindra Agrawal, Nitin Saxena, and Neeraj Kayal (proved with their AKS primality test that primality testing has a polynomial time algorithm, a major result in theoretical computer science)
- Avanidhar Subrahmanyam: Notable professor at UCLA, expert in the field of behavioral finance, great-grandson of Patanjali Sastri, Goldyne and Irwin Hearsh Chair of Money and Banking
- Pradeep Sindhu (Founder - Juniper Networks)
- Ashok Jhunjhunwala (Padma Shri and Professor, Dept of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras)
- Jainendra K. Jain (condensed matter theorist)
- Satyendra Dubey (Whistle-blower whose murder shocked the nation)
- Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy, scientist in the area of NMR and biological membranes.
- Duvvuri Subbarao, 22nd Governor of Reserve Bank of India
- Shiraz Minwalla, (String Theorist)
- Mriganka Sur, (Neuro Scientist), Sherman Fairchild Professor of Neuroscience, Head, Dept of Brain and Cognitive Science MIT, Fellow of Royal Society
- Rajeev Motwani, (Computer Scientist), Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University. Helped back companies such as PayPal and Google.
- Rakesh Soni, Chief Operating Officer at Tech Mahindra
- Dr.Nitin Kaistha, Associate Professor at Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Kanpur. [Research Areas; Plant-wide control of complex chemical processes]
[edit] Awards and recognition
- Chandra Kintala(Director, Yahoo Labs, Bengaluru) received Smithsonian medal sponsored by Computer World in 1998
- C.N.R. Rao (Ex-Chairman, BOG, IIT Kanpur) received the Dan David Prize, given by the Dan David Foundation, Tel Aviv University.
- C.N.R. Rao was conferred the title Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) by France, the highest civilian award given by the French Government.
- Godel Prize to Rajeev Motwani (2001) and Manindra Agrawal, Neeraj Kayal and Nitin Saxena (2006).
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Kelkar, P.K. (2006-03-17). "IIT Kanpur — History". IIT Kanpur. http://www.iitk.ac.in/infocell/iitk/newhtml/history.htm. Retrieved on 2006-05-27.
- ^ "Setting new highs with nano satellite". http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Kanpur/Setting_new_highs_with_nano_satellite/articleshow/4138879.cms.. Dated:16 February 2009
Coordinates: 26°28′N 80°20′E / 26.46°N 80.33°E
[edit] External links
- Official Website
- NERD Magazine
- Group for Environment and Energy Engineering
- Cultural Festival Of IIT Kanpur
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