ISRO Chairman K. Sivan will be the chief guest at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi’s 50th convocation to be held on November 2.
Ahead of the convocation, IIT-Delhi Director V. Ramgopal Rao announced a partnership between the institute and ISRO to set up a space technology cell. Mr. Rao said “IIT-D and ISRO will jointly set up ISRO Space Technology Cell at IIT-D. The cell will work towards carrying out focused research projects in the space technology domain with specific deliverables.”
He added that IIT-D was working towards becoming an academic partner of ISRO to conduct research in areas such as AI, nanotechnology, smart manufacturing and other relevant fields.
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Mr. Rao said that IIT-D has also started six new academic entities in the last two years to realign its research focus with the modern trends and national requirements. “We have enhanced our research budgets by 300% in the last four years. At the convocation, we will announce two new Masters Programmes and modifications to NIT undergraduate student admission process to Ph.D. programmes,” he said.
The institute announced that it was investing over ₹250 crore in augmenting its research facilities and over ₹750 crore was being spent on infrastructure projects on the campus. Mr. Rao added that to mark the Golden Jubilee Convocation of IIT-D, a billion dollar endowment drive was inaugurated by the President on October 31 at Rashtrapati Bhavan with an initial commitment of ₹255 crore by members of the alumni.
The endowment model aims to achieve a target corpus of $1 billion over a period of seven years. This first-of-its-kind fund in India will work towards the development of the university, nurturing innovation and keeping alive the entrepreneurial spirit among the youth of India, also in the form of scholarships, the institute said.
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The 50th convocation will witness 1,217 post graduate and 825 under graduate students being awarded degrees. To mark the convocation, a commemorative stamp and special cover will also be released.