Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (also known as IIT Kanpur or IITK) is a public technical and research university located in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. It was declared to be an Institute of National Importance by the Government of India under the Institutes of Technology Act.
Established in 1960 as one of the first Indian Institutes of Technology, the institute was created with the assistance of a consortium of nine US research universities as part of the Kanpur Indo-American Programme (KIAP).
Key Description:
Motto: तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय (Sanskrit)
Motto in English: "From darkness, lead me to light"
Type: Public Technical university
Established: 1959; 61 years ago
Chairman: K Radhakrishnan
Director: Abhay Karandikar
Academic staff: 447
Students: 6,416
Undergraduates: 3,686
Postgraduates: 1,341
Doctoral students: 1,389
Location: Kalyanpur, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India
Campus: Urban 1,000 acres (4.0 km2)
Nickname: IITians, Kanpur-IITians
Website www.iitk.ac.in
Social Network: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn
History of IIT Kanpur
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 Grand Trunk Road near the locality of Kalyanpur in Kanpur district. The campus was designed by Achyut Kavinde in a modernist style.
During the first ten years of its existence, a consortium of nine US universities (namely MIT, UCB, 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 IIT Kanpur's research laboratories and academic programmes under the Kanpur Indo-American Programme (KIAP). The first director of the institute was P. K. Kelkar (after whom the Central Library was renamed in 2002).
Under the guidance of economist John Kenneth Galbraith, IIT Kanpur was the first institute in India to offer Computer science education.
The earliest computer courses were started at IIT Kanpur in August 1963 on an IBM 1620 system. The initiative for computer education came from the Electrical engineering department, then under the chairmanship of Prof. H.K. Kesavan, who was concurrently the chairman of Electrical Engineering and head of the Computer Centre. Prof. Harry Huskey of the University of California, Berkeley, who preceded Kesavan, helped with the computer activity at IIT-Kanpur.
In 1971, the institute began an independent academic program in Computer Science and Engineering, leading to MTech and PhD degrees.
In 1972 the KIAP program ended, in part because of tensions due to the U.S. support of Pakistan. Government funding was also reduced as a reaction to the sentiment that the IIT's were contributing to the brain drain.
The institute's annual technical festival, Techkriti, was first started in 1995.
Campus of IIT Kanpur
IIT Kanpur is located on the Grand Trunk Road, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) west of Kanpur City and measures close to 420 hectares (1,000 acres). This land was donated by the Government of Uttar Pradesh in 1960 and by March 1963 the institute had moved to its current location.
The institute has around 6478 students with 3938 undergraduate students and 2540 postgraduate students and about 500 research associates.
Noida Extension Centre
IIT Kanpur is to open an extension centre in Noida with the plan of making a small convention centre there for supporting outreach activities. Its foundation was laid on 4 December 2012 on 5 acres of land allocated by Uttar Pradesh state government in the sector-62 of Noida city, which is less than an hour's journey from New Delhi and the Indira Gandhi International Airport.
The cost of construction is estimated to be about 25 crores. The new campus will have an auditorium, seminar halls for organizing national and international conferences and an International Relations Office along with a 7-storey guest house.
Several short-term management courses and refresher courses meant for distance learning will be available at the extension center.News from. IITK. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
Admissions 2020
Undergraduate admissions until 2012 were being done through the national-level Indian Institute of Technology Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE).
Following the Ministry of Human Resource Development's decision to replace IIT-JEE with a common engineering entrance examination, IIT Kanpur's admissions are now based on JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) -Advanced level along with other IITs.
Postgraduate admissions are made through the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering and Common Aptitude Test.
Student Life of IIT Kanpur
National Events:
Antaragni: Antaragni is a non-profit organisation run by the students of IIT Kanpur. It was funded entirely by the Student Gymkhana of the university it began. Today the budget is almost Rs 1 crore, raised through sponsorship.
It began as an inter-collegiate cultural event in 1964, and now draws in over 30,000 visitors from 300 colleges in India Annual held over 4 days in October.
The festival includes music, drama, literary games and quizzing. There is a YouTube channel dedicated to the festival with 1,000+ subscribers.
Techkriti: It was started in 1995 with an aim to encourage interest and innovation in technology among students and to provide a platform for industry and academia to interact.
Megabucks (a business and entrepreneurship festival) used to be held independently but was merged with Techkriti in 2010. Notable speakers at Techkriti have included APJ Abdul Kalam, Vladimir Voevodsky, Douglas Osheroff, Oliver Smithies, Rakesh Sharma, David Griffiths and Richard Stallman.
Udghosh: Udghosh is IIT Kanpur's annual sports festival Usually held in September.It started in 2004 as inter- college sports meet organised by the institute.UDGHOSH involves students from all over India competing in the university's sports facilities.
The festival includes Motivational Talks, Mini Marathon, Gymnastic Shows and Sport Quizzes to various sports events like:
Vivekananda Youth Leadership Convention: Vivekananda Samiti, under Students Gymkhana, on behalf of the IIT Kanpur, has undertaken the celebration of 150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda from 2011 to 2015.
The convention has included Kiran Bedi, Bana Singh, Yogendra Singh Yadav, Raju Narayana Swamy, Arunima Sinha, Rajendra Singh and other personalities from different fields in previous years.
E-summit: It started in 2013. The first E-Summit was scheduled for 16–18 Aug 2013. These three-day festival by Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kanpur on the theme Emerge on the Radar included talks by eminent personalities, workshops and competitions.
Ranking of IIT Kanpur
Internationally, IIT Kanpur was ranked 291 in QS World University Rankings for 2020. It was ranked 61 in QS Asia Rankings 2019 and 25 among BRICS nations.
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranked it 601–800 globally in the 2020 ranking 82 in Asia and 46 among Emerging Economies University Rankings 2019.
In India, among engineering colleges, fifth by Outlook India and fourth by The Week in 2019.
It was ranked fourth among engineering colleges in India by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) in 2020, and sixth overall. It ranked fourth among government engineering colleges by India Today in 2018.
The Department of Industrial and Management Engineering was ranked 22 among management schools in India by NIRF in 2019.
Academic Bodies And Activities
Undergraduate
IIT Kanpur offers four-year BTech programs in
- Aerospace Engineering
- Biological Sciences and Bio-engineering
- Chemical Engineering
- Civil Engineering
- Computer Science and Engineering
- Electrical Engineering
- Materials Science and Engineering
- Mechanical Engineering
The admission to these programs is procured through Joint Entrance Examination. IITK offers admission only to bachelor's degree now (discontinuing the integrated course programs), but it can be extended by 1 year to make it integrated, depending on the choice of student and based on his/her performance there at undergraduate level.
IIT Kanpur also offers four-year B.S. Programs in Pure and Applied Sciences (Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry in particular), Earth Science and Economics.
New Academic System:
From 2011, IIT Kanpur has started offering a four-year BS program in sciences and has kept its BTech Program intact. Entry to the five-year MTech/MBA programs and Dual degree programme will be done based on the CPI of students instead of JEE rank.
In order to reduce the number of student exams, IIT Kanpur has also abolished the earlier system of conducting two mid-term examinations. Instead, only two examinations (plus two quizzes in most courses depending on the instructor-in-charge, one before mid-semesters and the other after the mid-semesters and before the end-semesters examination), one between the semester and other towards the end of it would be held from the academic session starting July 2011 onward as per Academic Review Committee's recommendations.
Postgraduate
Postgraduate courses in Engineering offer Master of Technology (MTech), MS (R) and PhD degrees. The institute also offers two-tier MSc courses in areas of basic sciences in which students are admitted through Joint Admission Test for MSc (JAM) exam.
The institute also offers M.Des. (2 years), M.B.A. (2 years) and MSc (2 years) degrees. Admissions to MTech is made once a year through Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering. Admissions to M. Des are made once a year through both Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering(GATE) and Common Entrance Exam for Design (CEED). Until 2011, admissions to the M.B.A. program were accomplished through the Joint Management Entrance Test (JMET), held yearly, and followed by a Group Discussion/Personal Interview process. In 2011, JMET was replaced by Common Admission Test (CAT).
Departments
The academic departments at IIT Kanpur are:
| Engineering | Humanities and Social Sciences | Inter Disciplinary |
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| Science | Management | Design |
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