The Ministry of Education, New Delhi, has effected a change of guard at the National Institute of Technology- Trichy (NIT-T) following completion of the five-year tenure of outgoing Director Mini Shaji Thomas.
G. Kannabiran, Senior Professor of NIT-Trichy, and Director of Indian Institute of Information Technology, Sri City, Andhra Pradesh, has been appointed as Director In-Charge.
Ms. Mini Shaji Thomas joined the Institute in 2016 as the first woman Director. Under her stewardship, the institution rose to be the first among the 31 NITs due to periodical recruitment drives that resulted in addition of 119 faculty including 27 young women.
Five new academic programmes were launched and Six Centres of Excellence were established to enable high-end research. The laurels won by NIT-T over the last five years include National Supercomputing facility, National MOOCs coordinator, Prime Ministers Research Fellows Awards, National Research Development Corporation - Innovation Facilitation Centres, and TCS AI Centre.
As the seniormost professor, Mr. Kannabiran had served NIT-T for over three decades in various roles including Head of the Department of Management and Dean of Research & Consultancy at the institute level. He also served as Director i/c of NIT-T in 2016.
A recipient of Commonwealth Professional Fellowship, Fulbright Fellowship and a British Council Study Fellowship, Mr. Kannabiran served as the national expert of Asian Productivity Organisation for international research studies in the areas of Higher Education and Smart Manufacturing.
As the Founding Director of Centre for Entrepreneurship Development and Incubation (Section 8 Company promoted by NITT), he obtained major grants from Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India, Sonata Software Ltd, Asia Foundation and others for promoting innovation and entrepreneurship.
Mr. Kannabiran led the institute to win 'High Impact Entrepreneurship Campus Award 2015' jointly conferred by Government of India.
Mr. Kannabiran headed the Centre for SME Research Development at NIT-T and carried out sponsored projects with national and international funding including MeitY, AICTE, UKIERI, and The Asia Foundation, for about ₹7 crore in the areas of Industry-Institute Interaction, Computer-based Learning, Entrepreneurship Development, IT Graduate Employability, SME development, and Data Privacy.
