IIIT-H celebrates 17th convocation

Hyderabad: International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-Hyderabad) celebrated its 17th convocation ceremony on Saturday. It graduated 423 students, with a record number of 136 research students, including 11 Ph.Ds. Shri Kris Gopalakrishnan, Executive Vice- Chairman of Infosys, was the chief guest at the ceremony and delivered the convocation address. Prof. Raj Reddy, Chairman, Governing Council of IIIT-Hyderabad presided over the ceremony.

ParkhiyaParvKeshavlal, B.Tech Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE) were awarded the IIIT gold medal in recognition of his outstanding academic performance.  The B.Tech Best All-rounder award was presented to Anjali Anil Shenoy B.Tech in CSE. Eleven students received programme gold medals. 
Congratulating the graduating students and their parents, Prof. P J Narayanan said, “We encourage the new batch of students joining the ever-growing network of alumni to go out and conquer the world in their own unique ways and request them to keep a little bit of IIIT-H in their hearts and connect back with the institute of tomorrow to help push it forward.”

Research-led education with a special focus on undergraduate research at IIIT-Hyderabad has resulted in the institute contributing immensely to the society through technology solutions as well as individuals who are equipped to solve unstructured problems. The institute lays emphasis on an education that produces competent, creative, and caring individuals with a mature world-view.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

1. 423 graduates (B.Tech, B.Tech-MS Dual Degree, M.Tech, Master of Science by Research, PhD, and MSIT programmes - 125 UG, 213 PG and 85 MSIT).
2. 137 companies registered for conducting placements and made job offers to these graduating students. The institute had 100% placements in the past year. Our students are among the most sought after by the technology and product industry. ECE students secured a 34% increase in pay packages. Average salary of 18 lakhs. Research-based (B.Tech and MS Research) Dual Degree ECE students secure 40% higher packages that the B.Tech program.  Offshore (international) offers with highest package being at 1.5 crore.

1. 7 new faculty members joined the institute.
2. TCS Foundation accepted the institute’s proposal for continued CSR funding for the Kohli Centre on Intelligent Systems (KCIS) to the tune of Rs. 33 crores for the 5 years towards making KCIS a self-sufficient and highly visible entity. 
3. Ripple included IIIT Hyderabad in their Blockchain University Research Initiative along with 16 other global universities. The institute will establish a Centre of Excellence in Blockchains to enhance the research in related areas.
4. Faculty, research students, research staff, and undergraduate students published about 345 papers in top conferences and journals last year, and several won best paper and poster awards in top national and international conferences.
5. The 17th edition of R&D Showcase held in February included 280 posters, demos and models for visitors to browse through. It saw participation from around 3,000 visitors comprising of corporate R&D heads, students and faculty from engineering colleges, industry professionals and technology savvy general public. 
6. The Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CIE) of IIITH Foundation completed a decade in 2018. It has been home to early stage startups not limiting to IIIT H students but from any part of the country. It focuses on startups built on deep technology in recent times. It has incubated 250+ startups and generated an employment to 1400+ youth. With 83 incubated companies and about 430 employees working in them, CIE holds its position as the largest academic incubator in the country.
7. Our Student Technology Education Programme (STEP) inspired over 100 school children to learn Computational Thinking at the institute over 4 weeks during their summer holidays.
8. IIIT-Hyderabad established Product Labs under the Technology Transfer Office in Jan 2018. The objective of it is to translate the IP from the research labs to market-relevant products and solutions that an entrepreneur or a corporate can take forward as a business. The TTO has identified over 150 technologies that could be relevant to industry.
9. The institute and its faculty played major roles in conducting several top conferences. These include BDA-2017, ISEC 2018, ICON-2017 and many more. Several workshops, conferences, Hackathons, summer and winter schools also were conducted at the institute which brought several students and practitioners to the campus for intense hands-on exposure to topics like Basics Of Modern AI, Advances In Modern AI, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Social Computing, earthquake resistant design procedures of buildings, Advances in Speech Processing Applications. 
1. The institute launched a semester-long certificate program in AI and ML in January 2018 in collaboration with Talent Sprint for industry professionals. This weekend program combines face-to-face lectures, doubt-clearing sessions, and intense hands-on lab sessions.
11. The institute has been organizing distinguished lectures by eminent individuals from across the globe in different areas.
12. PhD student AvijitDasgupta received Google fellowship. Over 35 students including several undergraduates travelled to international conferences to present their papers and participate in academic discussions. An impressive number of 21 students were supported by the institute’s resources for research and to participate in top national and international conferences and the rest by outside agencies like Amazon, Microsoft Research (MSR), Google and TCS.
13. The alumni of the institute are spread all over the world and have been making significant contributions in their respective spheres. As the institute is completing 20 years this year, special efforts are being made to strengthen the connect with the global alumni is being made. The alumni have setup an active alumni scholarship program for needy students. The alumni have contributed about Rs. 72 lakhs for this in the past and 35 students have received financial assistance through the scheme.
14. IIIT Hyderabad represented the country in the world finals of the ACM Intercollegiate Programming Contest for the 9th time! Another institute team took part in the final round of the CANSAT competition conducted by the American Astronautical Society.
15. New facilities were added - Lawn Tennis Courts at the felicity ground, Tarangini, an amphitheatre for student-activities and Parijat - women’s hostel.