It apparently seems a long and arduous journey for an academic institution that began as a mere concept in academic institution- building. The International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad or IIIT-Hyderabad, has today emerged arguably as a rather unique research focused academic institution that is neither government nor private in its founding fabric and designed not by academic departments but on the basis of research centres.
Taking off in the erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh with N Chandrababu Naidu as the then chief minister, IIIT-Hyderabad, now in its 25th year, showcases its research competence in niche areas.
Professor Raj Reddy, IIIT-H’s founding chairman of its governing council and the Mozah Bint Nasser professor at the Carnegie Mellon University, USA, described the institution as the only one in the country to offer research options at the undergraduate level from day one. He was speaking at a media interaction on Friday, September 1st. He said, “we envisioned a research-oriented institution that imparts technical knowledge and fosters innovation, creativity, and a deep understanding of the ever-changing tech landscape. Our dedication has been to cutting-edge technological advances, fostering partnerships with industry leaders, facilitating research-driven curricula, and investing in state-of-the-art laboratories.”
Starting out on September 2nd in 1998 from the premises of what was once the office of the district collectorate in Hyderabad as a not-for-profit partnership between the public and private sector with a focus on research, it is today a sprawling campus spread over 60 acres in the heart of the IT district of Hyderabad armed with salubrious buildings housing advanced research labs with edge in AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning).
Sharing details of its 25-year journey, Prof. P J Narayanan, Director – IIIT-H, disclosed the appointment of new chairman, Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala. Known for his role in the establishment of the IIT Madras Research Park as a major innovation ecosystem within academia, Professor Jhunjhunwala takes over from Prof Raj Reddy, IIIT-H’s founding chairman of its governing council and a global expert who is also the Mozah Bint Nasser professor at the Carnegie Mellon University. A founder of the Robotics Institute at CMU, USA, Professor Reddy has also been the recipient of the Turing Prize, known to many as the Nobel Prize in Computer Science apart from a Padma Bhushan award in 2001.
According to Prof Narayanan, IIIT- H now has over 100 faculty, 22 research centres, 5 research translation centres, major applied AI initiatives, and one of the country’s largest academic incubators. It’s Kohli Centre for Intelligent Systems, established in 2015 with funding from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), continues to be a leading centre on Intelligent systems, bringing together India’s brightest minds to take research from lab to land for long-term social impact. In collaboration with Intel, an Applied Artificial Intelligence Research Centre (INAI) was established in 2020. A Technology Innovation Hub under DST’s NM-ICPS was established in 2020. About 5000 alumni of IIIT Hyderabad are making a significant impact in various institutions, roles, and geographies.
Pointing to some of its unique research projects, he referred to “iRASTE, a road safety project in Nagpur and Telangana; India Driving Dataset, Bodhyaan Platform, Biometric-Build deduplication and matching engines for UIDAI, Speech-to-Speech translation mission, bhAShiNi and Live annotation of players in a cricket match with Star Sports etc. and others.”
At IIIT-H, he said the current focus areas were Signal Processing and Communications, Data Sciences and analytics, Language Technologies, Robotics, Security, Theory and Algorithms, Smart Cities, Cognitive Science, Computational Social Sciences etc. and others. In terms of “Data-Driven Research Rankings, IIIT Hyderabad is ranked 1st in India, 30th in Asia and 102 in the world,” he said.