Inventions and innovations are key words on which the foundation of IIT Hyderabad is based. These are also key drivers for the vision of IIT Hyderabad. Our endeavor is to create an institute that will provide a space for free and uninhibited thinking, a space where faculty and students can experiment with novel ideas without the fear of failure. It is our firm belief that such an ambience will foster highest level of research: blue sky research as well as developmental research leading to proof of concepts and prototypes.
IIT Hyderabad started functioning from August 2008 form its temporary campus located in Ordnance Factory, Medak district. On February, 27, 2009, on its main campus in Kandi, the foundation stone of IIT Hyderabad was laid by Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Hon’ble Chairperson of UPA. In its first year IITH had B.Tech. programs in Computer Science and Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering; with total student strength of 111. Keeping its thrust on research, the Ph.D. program was started in January 2009 and the M.Tech. program in August 2009. Since 2009, our maximum effort has targeted capacity building – particularly faculty recruitment. In August 2010, IIT Hyderabad had 50 faculty members in 11 departments – more are likely to join soon and the number will grow rapidly. In 2010, IIT Hyderabad has total student strength of 510 – 351 B.Techs., 83 M.Techs., 69 Ph.D. and 7 M.Sc. students. In fact the UG:PG ratio for the students admitted for the 2010-2011 academic year is 118:99. Soon IITH will have a 1:1 UG:PG ratio –in tune with the thrust on research and development.
IIT is focusing on developing an innovative and flexible academic program that will excite young minds. As a first step, B.Tech. minor and B.Tech. honors program have been implemented from August 2010. Moreover, there is a liberal policy for change of departments. More innovations in the academic program are in the offing.
Though a little over two years old, IITH faculty have several sponsored projects from DST, DIT and other governmental agencies. The total outlay of these projects is nearly 5 crs. In addition, there is a major research project on Information Network for Natural Disaster Mitigation and Recovery – a joint IITH-Japan collaborative project -- the outlay of this project is Rs.20.00 crs. over a span of 5 years. Sponsored research will be a perpetual endeavor at IITH. As part of the research activities we are establishing collaborations with industries in and around Hyderabad.
IITH has active collaboration with Japan. This involves joint research projects, exchange of faculty and students, and in future some infrastructure development on the main campus.
In its endeavor to have global collaborations IITH has MoUs with University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Georgia Institute of Technology - Atlanta. We are in the process of signing MoUs with several other universities in US and Japan.
With a 500 plus student population IITH has a large number of student’s activities: sports, cultural, technology, and entrepreneurship. The students have an active publication called Reverb.
The Master Plan for the main campus is ready and we are in the process of appointing a panel f architects for the first phase of the main campus development.
IITH would like to express its gratitude to IIT-Madras, its mentor IIT, for outstanding support at all levels. For this we express our special thanks to Prof. Ananth, Director, IIT-Madras. We would also like to thank the management of the Ordnance Factory, Medak for giving us unstinted support in running IITH on their campus.
