598 graduating students receive degrees at IIIT-A’s 17th convocation
Managing director of the Microsoft Research India Lab, Bangalore, Sriram Rajamani was the chief guest of the ceremony. I
As many as 598 students, including 194 of BTech (IT), 83 of BTech (Electronics and Communication Engineering) as well as 321 of MTech, MBA and PhD courses were awarded degrees at the 17th convocation function of the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad (IIIT-A), held at the institute’s Jhalwa campus on Saturday. The degree recipients included 37 research scholars who were conferred with PhD degrees.
Managing director of the Microsoft Research India Lab, Bangalore, Sriram Rajamani was the chief guest of the ceremony. In his address, Rajamani said that exams will stop after college, but learning should not stop.
He talked about the importance of lifelong learning and thoughts on how to keep learning fun and enjoyable, instead of being stressful, over many years. He also discussed key reasons why life-long learning is more important. He also asked the graduates to focus on issues like increasing human life spans and rapid changes in technology.
He explained how Artificial Intelligence (AI) has evolved over the years and the key ingredients of large language models and experiences such as Chat GPT while going on to explain what these generating models are able to do today, and what they will likely be able to do in the coming years.
He also talked about broader societal disruptions and called on the graduates to be in the driver’s seat instead of being spectators of such disruptions.
Presiding over the ceremony, the chairman, the board of governors (BOG), IIIT-A, Anand Deshpande said that knowledge is worthy when it is useful for the common man and leads to innovations that solve society’s problems.
He added that beyond academic excellence, IIIT-A has created a culture of contributing to society.
Apart from the core academic duties, the faculty members and students have been engaged in helping the local, mostly deprived community around Jhalwa through various outreach programmes like ‘Unnat Bharat Abhiyan’ and ‘Prayas’.
Officiating Director, IIIT-A, prof RS Verma said that a total of 226 companies visited IIIT-Allahabad last year. The highest package offered was around ₹1.2 crores per annum. A total of 319 students were placed in the BTech programme (including dual degree courses), 137 from the MTech programme and 29 from the management programme.
On the occasion, the institute Gold Medal for BTech (IT) was given to Abhishek Manish Singh. Manthan Raju Surkar and Rohini Mishra were awarded silver and bronze medals, respectively.
Kingsuk Bag, Abhigyan Sharma and Vivek Kumar Mehta of BTech (Electronics and Communication Engineering) were awarded gold, silver and bronze medals, respectively. The Chairman’s Gold Medal was awarded to Kingsuk Bag, Megha Goyal Memorial Gold Medal to Swarnam Sinha, the Nobel scientist prof Claude Cohen Tanoji Gold Medal to Pranjali Bhargava, prof Jolly Cohen Tanoji gold medal to Tanu Singh, TCM Pillai Memorial gold medal to Manthan Raju Surkar and prof Ing Mathias Kleiner gold medal was awarded to Prateek Mishra.
