IIIT convocation held; 355 students excel

More than 100 companies have registered for conducting placements and made job offers to these graduating students

Fourteenth convocation of International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad was held on Saturday. As many as 355 students graduated in the current academic year.

A total of six PhD, 38 UG, 104 M Tech, 52 MS and 55MSIT degrees were awarded at the convocation.

PJ Narayan, Director of IIIT, claimed that more than hundred companies have registered for conducting placements and made job offers to these graduating students. “This reflects that the IIIT graduates are in great demand. Not just for their subject-oriented skills, their ability to lead the teams, capacity to develop the business were also the reasons for the good opportunities they are getting”, he said.

Affirming that the 15-year journey of IIIT has been highly successful and productive, PJ Narayan said that the institution has been actively involved in developing electronic courseware and study material for school and colleges. “The institute is involved in the development of over 30 virtual labs in sciences, civil, electronic engineering- under MHRD’s National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT)”, he added.

“A team from IIIT is additionally providing the platform and engineering support for virtual labs developed by other institutions. IIIT-H is helping to train teachers of engineering colleges in AP and is also providing them with digital courseware to train their students. 450 teachers from AP Engineering colleges have been trained through 2-month contact programs over the last three years. Many of them in turn are conducting special 4-months certificate course in IT for students at their colleges”, he explained.

“The Human Value cell has conducted one orientation workshop for principals, three 5-day Master Training Programs, followed by four 1-day video sessions as refresher course. Over 2,500 lecturers have been trained to teach HVPE in these colleges”, he added.

The Centre for Innovation &Entrepreneurship (CIE) IIIT is now one of the largest academic incubators in the country with over 40 startups, 300 employees. Sangitha Reddy, Director of Apollo Hospitals Group, who delivered the convocation address, said access to healthcare was a huge challenge and the nation was chained by two seemingly insurmountable bottlenecks – geographical access and financial access. The problem of quality healthcare is also there and the concept of clinical excellence was far from popular.

“I am of the firm view that India should develop the definitive way forward with an action plan to impact the future of healthcare. The solutions that we develop could not only favorably impact health in India, but also serve as a unique model for addressing health challenges globally; i.e. the notion of reverse innovation in healthcare out of India” , she exhorted.

“India needs double the number of doctors, triple the nurse and quadruple the number paramedics to meet the World Health organisation’s mandate of population to medical personnel recommendations”, Sangitha opined. Chairman of IIIT and eminent educationist Prof Raj Reddy stressed on innovation and quality.