Indian Institutes of Technology

Indian Institutes of Technology

Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are the premier engineering colleges in India. They were founded in the 1950s by the Indian Government under a special act by the President, and modelled along the lines of great US universities, notably MIT. The IIT campuses were founded in Kharagpur (1950), Mumbai (1958), Chennai (1959), Kanpur (1960), New Delhi (1961), and more recently in Guwahati (1995) and Roorkee (2001).

There are about 1500 undergraduate and 2000 graduate students in each IIT. Many graduates of the IITs go to the USA to work and to study. The IITs are well respected worldwide and are often referred to as the MIT-equivalents in India. Many of the IIT Alumni have excelled in Silicon Valley.

A student/alumnus of the Indian Institutes of Technology is known as an IITian.

Table of contents

1 Notable Alumni
2 Notable Praise
3 List of fictional IITians
4 External links

Notable Alumni

Name Campus Year Achievement
Ajay Bharadwaj Delhi 82 President, Biocon India
Arjun Malhotra Kharagpur 70 co-founder, HCL Technologies
Arun Sarin - - CEO-designate of Vodafone
Avi Nash - - Advisory Director, Goldman Sachs
Bharat Desai Mumbai 75 Chairman and CEO, Syntel Inc
Gururaj Deshpande Chennai - co-founder Sycamore Networks
Kanwal Rekhi Mumbai - CEO Ensim Corporation; ex-CTO Novell
Manohar Parrikar Mumbai 78 Chief Minister, Goa
N.R. Narayana Murthy Kanpur (MTech) - co-founder and Chairman of Infosys
Nandan Nilekani Mumbai 78 co-founder and CEO of Infosys
Rajat Gupta Delhi 71 Managing Director, McKinsey & Company
Rakesh Gangwal - - CEO Worldspan, ex-CEO US Airways Group
Ravi Uppal Delhi - Vice-Chairman and MD, ABB India
Som Mittal Kanpur 73 CEO Digital GlobalSoft
Victor Menezes Mumbai - Senior Vice Chairman, Citigroup
Vindi Banga - - chairman, HLL
Vinod Khosla Delhi 76 co-founder Sun Microsystems

Name	Campus	Year	Achievement
Ajay Bharadwaj	Delhi	82	President, Biocon India
Arjun Malhotra	Kharagpur	70	co-founder, HCL Technologies
Arun Sarin	-	-	CEO-designate of Vodafone
Avi Nash	-	-	Advisory Director, Goldman Sachs
Bharat Desai	Mumbai	75	Chairman and CEO, Syntel Inc
Gururaj Deshpande	Chennai	-	co-founder Sycamore Networks
Kanwal Rekhi	Mumbai	-	CEO Ensim Corporation; ex-CTO Novell
Manohar Parrikar	Mumbai	78	Chief Minister, Goa
N.R. Narayana Murthy	Kanpur (MTech)	-	co-founder and Chairman of Infosys
Nandan Nilekani	Mumbai	78	co-founder and CEO of Infosys
Rajat Gupta	Delhi	71	Managing Director, McKinsey & Company
Rakesh Gangwal	-	-	CEO Worldspan, ex-CEO US Airways Group
Ravi Uppal	Delhi	-	Vice-Chairman and MD, ABB India
Som Mittal	Kanpur	73	CEO Digital GlobalSoft
Victor Menezes	Mumbai	-	Senior Vice Chairman, Citigroup
Vindi Banga	-	-	chairman, HLL
Vinod Khosla	Delhi	76	co-founder Sun Microsystems

Notable Praise

Lesley Stahl of CBS on 60 Minutes: "Put Harvard, MIT and Princeton together and you get to an idea of the status of IIT in India."
N.R. Narayana Murthy, founder Infosys: "My son wanted to do computer Science. But to be in the IITs he had to be among the top 200 in the country. So he chose Cornell."
N.R. Narayana Murthy, founder Infosys: "I do know cases where students who couldn't get into computer science at IITs, they have gotten scholarship at MIT, at Princeton, at Caltech."
Vinod Khosla, Venture Capitalist: "When I finished IIT Delhi and went to Carnegie Mellon for my master's, I thought I was cruising all the way through Carnegie Mellon because it was so easy, relative to the education I had gotten at IIT Delhi"

List of fictional IITians

Asok, character in the Dilbert comic strip