IIT-M becomes top ranked engineering institution for 2nd consecutive year

Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has been selected as the top ranked engineering institution in the country for the second consecutive year as per National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), MHRD, Government of India. It has also emerged as the second-best institute in the country, under the 'Overall Category' introduced this year, in the NIRF Rankings.
 
The institute has marked its achievements in R&D, academic activities, innovations, and startups during the year. In 2017, three famous alumni of IIT Madras - Sparta Group Chairman Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande, treasurer Jaishree Deshpande and Infosys co-founder S Kris Gopalakrishnan - jointly launched an entrepreneurship centre at IIT Madras similar to the Deshpande Centres at MIT and elsewhere. It will get a funding of $500,000 per year over the next 5 years to support its activities.
 
The institute also signed an MoU with Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions (RBEI) to set up the Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (RBC-DSAI) to work on Data Science (DS) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). During the year, the World's largest Combustion Research Centre was inaugurated at IIT Madras to focus on Automotive, Thermal Power, and Aerospace Propulsion, besides fire research and microgravity combustion as well.
 
Bhaskar Ramamurthi, the director, IIT Madras, said, "It has been another satisfying year for IIT Madras, where we have done well in achieving or exceeding our Strategic Plan objectives in all areas of activity ranging from academics to incubation. Various awards won by our faculty and students, as well as the excellent placements, give us the encouragement needed to do even better next year".
 
In academics, it has introduced an upgrade path to M Tech degree for undergraduates in interdisciplinary areas of Data Sciences, Materials and Nanotechnology, Biomedical Engineering, Computational Engineering and Energy Systems. The online M Tech programmes in Automotive Technology, Communications Systems Engineering, tailor-made programs for the automotive, telecom and electronics industries, were also launched in 2017. Four more such programs for the aerospace, materials engineering and IT industries are approved for launch. It has also launched a two-year Executive MBA (EMBA) Degree Program for working professionals.
 
The Phase I of placements has seen more than 750 offers made with around 660 students getting placed, apart from a 114 pre-placement offers (PPOs), with 93 students accepting them. This brought the total number of students placed in current batch to more than 750. Phase II is likely to begin mid-January 2018.
 
The construction of the second and final phase of the IIT Madras Research Park, with 0.8 million square feet of built-up area has been completed. Students of IIT Madras have set the Asia and India records for operating the "Largest Number of Robots Cleaning an Area", with as many as 270 students from the Center For Innovation (CFI) fabricating a total of 45 Robots and cleaned an area of 750 sq ft.
 
The Institute was also recognised for the development of Solar DC Microgrid Technology by Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala and his team. It has been deployed in over 25000 off-grid homes in Rajasthan and Assam besides villages in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, bringing electricity to some of the remotest parts of the country.