IIT Kharagpur director advocates need for branding of premier tech institute

KOLKATA: IIT Kharagpur Director V K Tewari has stressed on the need for branding of the premier tech institution and claimed it will be among the top 10 higher educational institutions of the world by 2030. Tewari said this while interacting with the alumni in a virtual meet last week. Advocating the need "for involving students in a more cohesive manner," he said, "We need to do a lot of branding as IIT KGP, we need to work on our limitations, we have to work on certain areas". He said IIT Kharagpur is the first IIT in the country.

"We have to think very very big. We have to take strong steps, we have to follow Modi ji's ideal for an Atmanirbhar Bharat. We should be targeting to be among the top 10 in the world," he added. Referring to the call by President Droupadi Murmu to pitchfork IIT Kharagpur among the top 50 in the world in the Convocation held in December 2023, Tewari said "the Hon’ble President said 50. One of our senior officials set the target of being within 25. However, I am setting the target to be within top 10 higher educational institutions in the world".

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In the QS Asia World University Ranking for 2024, IIT Kharagpur occupied overall fifth rank in India and 59th in Asia. The largest and first IIT in the country made its entry at the top of the QS Asia University rankings with an overall score of 54.5, the institute said in a statement on November 11. Tewari claimed IIT Kharagpur will be among the top 10 higher educational institutions in the world by 2030. He suggested more academia-industry collaborations for which the institute needed to work with faculties and alumni and called for a higher number of collaborations with front-ranking world universities for the need to open up.

"The DRDO set up a centre of excellence (DIA-CoE). Centre for excellence for futuristic study in high-end technology subjects, in AI, in the sphere of safety analytics, in computational and data sciences, etc", he added. Tewari said IIT Kharagpur has been officially designated as a centre of excellence (CoE) in urban planning and design and this was possible due to the consistent good work by the faculty and students. As part of that the Centre will issue a grant of Rs 250 crore to the organisation, towards development and training of India-specific knowledge in urban planning and design in coming years, he added.