Over 800 students from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, were awarded degrees at the convocation ceremony on Thursday.
While they were elated and looking forward to the next step in their academic career, many pointed to the fact that only around 20% of the graduates were women. Of the 883 graduating students, 63 were awarded medals for meritorious performance.
Degrees were awarded in Ph.D, Masters and Bachelors programmes. Two of the 12 courses, including Master of Design (MDes), had no female student.
However, the Integrated Ph.D engineering programme bucked the trend: there were 12 female students in the batch of 26.
Azim Premji, founder chairman of Wipro Ltd., who was the chief guest, stressed on the importance of collaboration to achieve breakthrough innovations. On a more personal note, he pointed out that Wipro was born at IISc. “Apart from the transfer of technology and expertise, IISc. helped build R&D of Wipro. We would not be known as Wipro but for IISc.,” he said.
A.S. Kiran Kumar, former chairman, ISRO, and an alumni, was the guest of honour.
“IISc. is the temple of higher learning mentored by eminent and visionary leaders, which produced many scientists and engineers who played key roles in the development of the country,” he said. He called upon students to carry forward this legacy.
