Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
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The Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) is one of the Indian Institutes of Technology, set up in the then-industrial city of Kanpur in 1960. Today, IIT Kanpur has grown into one of the top technological institutes in India, primarily focused on research in engineering and science, and the teaching of undergraduates.
History
IIT Kanpur was established by an act of Parliament in 1959. The institute was started in December 1959 in a room in the Canteen Building of the Harcourt Butler Technological Institute at Agricultural Gardens in Kanpur. In 1963, the Institute moved to its present location, on the historic Grand Trunk Road near the village of Kalyanpur in Kanpur district. During the first ten years of its existence, IIT Kanpur benefited from the Kanpur Indo-American Programme, where a consortium of 9 US universities namely M.I.T, University of California Berkeley, California Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Carnegie Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, Ohio State University, Case Institute Of Technology and Purdue University helped set up the research laboratories and academic programmes. The first Director of the Institute was Dr. P. K. Kelkar (after whom the Central Library was renamed in 2003).Under the guidance of eminent economist John Kenneth Galbraith, IIT Kanpur was the first institute in India to start Computer Science education. The earliest computer courses were started at IIT Kanpur in August 1963 on an IBM 1620 system, a novelty then even in many North American and European universities. Gradually, the Institute drew upon some of the brightest young Indians in Computer Science to serve on its faculty and initiated an independent academic program in 1971, leading to M. Tech. and Ph.D. degrees.
Board of Governors
Board of Governors includes Dr. C.N.R. Rao( Chairman), Dr. S.G. Dhande( Director) and following: Dr. G.K. Mehta(Eminent Nuclear scientist),Anil Ambani(CEO ADAE), Dr. S.S. Lele(Director IT BHU), Aman Kumar Singh(CEO, CHIPS)Laboratories and other facilities
Spread in a sprawling campus of 4.3 square kilometres, IIT Kanpur has one of the best computational facilities in India. The Institute has a number of facilities, including the National Wind Tunnel Facility. Other large research centres include the Advanced Centre for Material Science, one of the country's best Bio-technology centre, the Advanced Centre for Electronic Systems, and the Samtel Centre for Display Technology, Centre for Mechatronics, Centre for Laser Technology, Prabhu Goel Research Centre for Computer and Internet Security, Facility for Ecological and Analytical Testing. The institute is also going to get a state of the art nanotechnology research centre soon. The P K Kelkar library has one of the most exhaustive collections of academic textbooks, peer-reviewed journals and other research material in the country, and boasts of an excellent reference section (where course material is reserved for students). In addition, the various departments have their own smaller libraries. Apart from this, IIT Kanpur also has its own airfield, for flight testing and gliding activities.
The Computer-Centre (referred to by the campus residents as "C-C") is quite an impressive facility in comparison to other academic institutions in the country. It has about 100-150 Linux terminals and more than 100 Windows-NT terminals supported by PARAM 10000 super computer, and is continuously available to the students for academic work and recreation. Disk storage is provided using a networked file server system. Internet access is provided by the means of two proxy servers, one for students and another for faculty (the computer science department in IIT Kanpur has its own independent network). In addition, it hosts about 50 SUN workstations that are considered powerful workhorses for heavy computational tasks. It is a major intellectual, social and cultural hub for the technocrats on campus. The IITs' (and especially IIT Kanpur) are among the first large academic institutions in India to be extensively networked, with an institute-wide LAN and Ethernet access to every student room in the residence halls.
Students
The undergraduate students at IIT Kanpur are selected through the Joint Entrance Examination of the IITs. The graduate students (Masters) are mainly selected through the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE). Presently, the institute has around 3800 students, with an equal distribution of graduate and undergraduate students.
Students at IIT Kanpur reside in the hostels, or 'halls of residence', most of which have their own unique history and lore. There are eight hostels for boys and two for girls called GH and hall 6.
The annual cultural festival is called Antaragni. It is held around the end of October every year. The annual science and technology festival, Techkriti, is held at the end of February each year. The annual sports festival, Udghosh/IIT Kanpur Sportsmeet, is held around the end of November each year and Umang, the annual Film Festival, is held in early January. All four are amongst the most popular college events in North India.
Another highlight of the student community is the self governance achieved in the form of the Students' Gymkhana, which is a democratically elected body.
Alumni
- Ashoke Sen (String theorist)
- N.R. Narayana Murthy (founded the software corporation Infosys)
- Manindra Agrawal, Nitin Saxena, and Neeraj Kayal (proved with their AKS primality test that the problem of checking primality has a polynomial time algorithm, a major result in theoretical computer science)
- Umang Gupta (Entrepreneur, wrote first business plan for Oracle, founded Gupta Technologies, and currently CEO of Keynote Systems)
- Raj Singh (Venture Capitalist, former billionaire, funded Teligent among others, married to Nita, also an alumnus of IIT Kanpur)
- Ambuj Goyal (GM of IBM's Information Management business)
- Satish Kaura (Padma Shri and founder of Samtel Group)
- Umesh Mishra (Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCSB and a leading expert on wide-band gap semiconductors)
- Pradeep Sindhu (Founder - Juniper Networks)
- Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala (Padma Shri and Profesor, Dept of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras)
- Dr. S. Sivaram (Director, NCL Pune)
- Dr. S.P. Mehrotra (Director, NML Jamshedpur)
- Dr. K. Vijayraghvan (Director, NBC Bangalore)
Miscellaneous
- C.N.R. Rao Chairman, IIT Kanpur received Dan David Prize, by the Dan David Foundation, Tel Aviv University,
- C.N.R. Rao, was conferred the title Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) by France, the highest civilian award given by the French Government.
- Godel Prize to Rajeev Motwani(2001) and Manindra Agrawal(2006)
- It was rated the no. 1 engineering institute in India by India Today in 2004.
- It was rated the no. 1 engineering college in India by IDC-Data Quest-Nasscom survey in 2005.
- First Academic Institute in India to have Smart Card based Security and Survillience.
External links
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