‘Distinguished alumni honoured for contribution to IIT- Kanpur, nation’
IIT Kanpur @ 60. The alumni were felicitated for academic, professional and entrepreneurship excellence.
As Vikas Vaibhav, deputy inspector general (DIG) of Bihar’s Bhagalpur range entered the portals of Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur on Friday morning, he could not help but take to twitter to express his sentiments. The occasion was 60th foundation day celebration of the institute.
“Reached IIT-Kanpur again after 18 years. Am feeling very nostalgic as I visited my Room 232/2, where I stayed during my second and third years of study from 1997 to 2001. The Ganga at Bithoor, a site which has always inspired with its heritage. Looking forward to the foundation day,” he tweeted.
This 2003 batch IPS officer of Bihar cadre was among the several alumni who were honoured by union minister for human resource development Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, who was guest of honour at a special event to celebrate the diamond jubilee of the institute on Saturday.
“At the event, several distinguished alumni were felicitated in acknowledgement of their achievements and contribution to both IIT-K and the nation, as the institute celebrates 60 years (diamond jubilee) of its existence,” said Prof Abhay Karandikar, director, IIT-Kanpur.
The alumni were felicitated for academic, professional and entrepreneurship excellence.
For academic excellence, the awardees were prof Shankar Subramanian, chair and professor of bioengineering, University of California, San Diego (1982), prof Nitash P Balsara, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, U C Berkeley (1982), prof Ajeet Rohatgi Regents’ Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology (1971) and prof Rajesh Gopakumar, centre director, ICTS-Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (1992).
The old pupils felicitated for professional excellence included chief economic advisor to the government of India, Prof Krishnamurthy Subramanian (1994), defence secretary Dr Ajay Kumar (1984) and senior vice president, cloud and cognitive software, IBM, New York, Arvind Krishna (1985), member Lokpal Dinesh Kumar Jain (1981/1983) and co-founder and chairman of Sagacito Technologies Ravindra Kumar Dhariwal (1975) while entrepreneurship excellence awards were given to Ajeet Singh, co-founder and executive chairman, ThoughtSpot (1997), Arun Seth, trustee, Nasscom foundation, chairman and co-founder, Global Groupware Solutions and former chairman of British Telecom (1973) and Pravin Bhagwat, founder and CTO Mojo Networks (1990).
Meanwhile, Vikas Vaibhav (IPS), DIG, eastern range, Bhagalpur Bihar (2001) was awarded the Satyendra K Dubey Memorial Award. Rakesh Sharma, an independent financial consultant (1978), Ram B Misra and professor at the Montclair State University (1968) were awarded with the distinguished services award while the Young Alumnus Award went to Deepak Garg, founder and CEO, Rivigo (2003) and Manu Prakash, associate professor, Stanford University (2002).
The diamond jubilee celebrations were attended by the present students as well as hundreds of alumni from India and abroad.
Also present on the occasion were prof Sandeep Verma, secretary, Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), government of India and Rahul Mehta, founder, The Mehta Family Foundation.
