JOIN USIIT-Madras unveils Strategic Plan 2022-2027
A hybrid pedagogy, upgrading infrastructure, deep-tech start-ups, creating an institute with a diversified group of faculty, students and staff, and pursuing nationally relevant and internationally recognized basic and translational research—these are the focus areas of the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras’s ‘Strategic Plan’ 2022-2027.
The IIT-M’s Strategic Plan 2022-27, which proposed an ambitious growth phase for the institute, was released by Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan in the presence of Prof V Kamakoti, Director of IIT-M, on Monday.
“We are focusing on seven verticals starting from a hybrid pedagogy to upgrading infrastructure to deep-tech start-ups to upgrading infrastructure to global standards have also identified key enablers to achieve these targets. We have set specific points for each of these verticals where we have tried to quantify our achievements,” Kamakoti said.
He added that the IIT-M “has always followed a planned growth approach to creating strategically important initiatives” which has yielded significant benefits to the institute in that it has retained “No. 1 position in NIRF ranking for six years in a row.”
According to Kamakoti, the new Strategic Plan for 2022-27 will start focusing more on ‘local relevance leading to global excellence.’
“The targets envisioned in the strategic plan include creating an institute with a diversified group of faculty, students and staff, pursuing nationally relevant and internationally recognized basic and translational research,” he said.
Launching the plan, Pradhan said that by the end of 2022, India will be rolling out 5G indigenous technology in all parts of the country, with participation from IIT-M which developed a 5G bed as a multi-institutional project.
“By the end of 2023, all the six lakh villages in India will be connected with the Internet through optical fibre cables… How to use that and what is the public good? Just imagine...the countryside agriculture produce of Tamil Nadu will get a market in New York,” he said.
Pradhan, who visited the 5G test bed for a demonstration and several other innovation centres including the Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre and the 3D-printed house in the campus, also launched ‘Kotak IITM Save Energy’ Mission and felicitated the Mphasis team for supporting the growth of the Centre for Quantum Information, Communication and Computing (CQuICC).
Mphasis, a leading Information Technology solutions provider specializing in cloud and cognitive services, is helping establish the Quantum Research Centre through their CSR programs with a grant of Rs 21 crore.
“The research focus would be around the domains of information, communication, and computing. It will bring together faculty from different engineering and science disciplines and focus on enhancing industrial applications of quantum science and technologies,” Ramanathan Srikumar, chief solutions officer of Mphasis, said.