IIT Kanpur

Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

Motto	तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय (tamaso mā jyotirgamaya)
Motto in English	Lead me from darkness to light
Type	Education and Research Institution
Established	1959
Chairman	M Anandakrishnan
Director	Sanjay Govind Dhande
Undergraduates	2,000 (approx)
Postgraduates	2,000 (approx)
Location	Kanpur , Uttar Pradesh , India
Campus	1,055 acres (4.27 km2)
Website	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 1959. IIT Kanpur has grown into one of the top technological institutes in India, primarily focused on research in engineering and science, and the teaching of undergraduates. IIT Kanpur has a sprawling campus spread over an area of approx. 4.3 square km, just north-west of the city. Among all IITs, IIT Kanpur has the second largest campus (1,055 acres), first being the IIT Kharagpur.

The campus is a self-contained community, with residences for students, faculty, and regular staff. There is a hospital, sports fields, and a swimming pool. Schools are provided for campus children, and an 'Opportunity school' supported by alumni, serves the children of local day and occasional workers.

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 (KIAP), 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. 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. The initiative for computer education came from the Electrical Engineering department, then under the chairmanship of Prof. H.K. Kesavan, who was concurrently the chairman of Electrical Engineering and head of the Computer Centre. Prof. Harry Huskey of the University of California, Berkeley, who preceded Dr. Kesavan, was instrumental in providing the impetus for the computer activity at IIT-Kanpur. In 1971, the institute initiated an independent academic program in Computer Science and Engineering, leading to M.Tech. and Ph.D. degrees.

In the late 1960's unrest developed among the lower classified staff and laborers, many of whom came from the village that had been on the grounds where the IIT Kanpur campus was built. In 1972 the KIAP program ended, in part because of tensions due to the U.S. support of Pakistan. Government funding was also reduced as a reaction to the sentiment that the IITs were contributing to the brain drain. Since then IIT Kanpur has increased collaboration with industry and has achieved a reasonable level of stability, especially since it is recognized that India now profits from job creation in the industries that it supports.

Academics

IIT Kanpur Faculty Building.

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.

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. Admissions to the MBA programme are accomplished through the Joint Management Entrance Test, held yearly, and followed by a Group Discussions/Personal Interview process.

Departments

Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Kanpur.

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
10. Nuclear Engineering

Humanities

Humanities & Social Sciences

Management

Industrial & Management Engineering

Science

1. Chemistry
2. Mathematics & Statistics
3. Physics

Laboratories and other facilities

Samtel Research and Development Building, at IIT Kanpur.

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 (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 Western Labs

The Computer Centre 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 , 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'.

Students

PK Kelkar Library, IIT Kanpur, designed by Achyut Kanvinde

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 nine hostels (Hall 1-5, 7-10) for boys and two for girls, called GH-1 and GH-2.

Student festivals

National events

• Antaragni: The annual cultural festival held in October
• Techkriti: The annual technology and business festival held in February
• Udgosh: The annual sports meet held in September

Both are amongst the most popular college events in India.

Intra-IIT events

• Josh
• Unmaad
• Crescendo
• Olympus
• Galaxy
• Deepshikha
• Voila
• Deepanjali

Student publications

The students also bring out a monthly campus newspaper, "Vox Populi", the college magazine "Meander" and "NERD", a novel science and technology magazine of the campus, described in the Research section. The monthly students' newspaper "Vox Populi" was recently successful in imposing the ban of cigarettes inside and near the campus.

Student Gymkhana

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.

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 publish the quarterly NERD Magazine (Notes on Engineering Research and Development) which publishes scientific and technical content created by students. 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 PoWER Promotion of work Experience and Research has also been initiated under the Office of Dean 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, ICT solutions through a group Young Engineers, solution for diabetes, green community solutions through ideas like zero water, zero waste quality air approach et cetera. A budget of Rs 1 to 2 crore has been envisaged to support student projects that demonstrate technology.

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.

SIDBI Innovation and Incubation Centre (SIIC) conducted the Nettech Summer Program 2007 for Engineering students from all over India at IIT Kanpur Campus(21 June 2007 to 15 July 2007) .[1]

Campus

Grey-headed Myna in IITK campus

The campus, spread over more than 1055 acres, is the largest after IIT Kharagpur. It houses a large population of nilgai and macaques, and is particularly noted for its peacocks and other bird life.

Academic Rankings and Accolades

In 2009 US News Ranking of World's Best Universities, Indian Institute of Technology,Kanpur(IITK)is ranked 237th in the list. Also,it is one of the Top-50 universities in Asia and is ranked 43rd in the list.

Top Study Links World University Rankings 2010 ranks Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur(IITK) as the 3rd best university in India. The university is ranked 681_th in World.

Notable alumni

Main article: List of notable Indian Institutes of Technology alumni

• Dr Chandra Kintala, Professor and Director of Software Engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology; Director(Retd.), Bell Labs, USA.
• Ashoke Sen (FRS and Padma Shri, 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).
• 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.
• 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.

Awards and recognition

• Chandra Kintala(Professor and Director of Software Engineering at NJIT) 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).

External links

• Official Website
• Official Website of NERD Magazine
• Official Website of Promotion of Work Experience and Research
• Official Website of Golden Jubilee IITK