The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras)—the country’s best engineering college as well as the best institute overall, according to the NIRF—has said it recorded a year of achievements during 2022. “The year saw activities returning in-person to campus in full swing, after two years of the pandemic. Also, on January 17, 2022, Prof V Kamakoti was appointed the new director,” the institute shared with the media.
Prof Kamakoti had recently shared with FE that 2022 turned out to be a year of challenges successfully addressed by IIT Madras. “Returning to normalcy in the post-Covid-19 era, the institute’s students, staff and faculty have performed to their best to reach the top spots in every aspect, be it emerging technologies, research, innovation, entrepreneurship or intellectual property,” he said. But the biggest impact IIT Madras made this year was outside the campus, including initiatives such as ‘IITM for All’ and free online courses.
“We unveiled a slew of initiatives such as ‘Out of the Box Thinking’ that were made available online for everyone,” Prof Kamakoti said. “The ‘Anaivarukkum IITM’ (IITM for All) initiative saw the institute grant admission to 87 students from government and corporation schools in the BS programme.”
Research
The institute said that in 2022 it also augmented its research infrastructure. It launched the Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre to power an ambitious global project to map the human brain at the cellular and connectivity levels, with a focus on high-resolution brain imaging. This centre aims to become a world-renowned research centre, generating unprecedented human brain data, scientific output and technology tools.
Also, IIT Madras researchers developed an artificial intelligence tool that can predict cancer-causing gene mutations in an individual. Called the PIVOT, this tool utilises information on mutations, expression of genes, copy number variation in genes, and changes in biological networks due to altered gene expression to make its predictions.
New courses
To prepare students for the next generation of transportation technology, IIT Madras launched the Interdisciplinary Dual Degree (IDDD) Master’s Programme in Electric Vehicles for the IIT Madras BTech and dual degree students. It also recently launched the IDDD Programme on Quantitative Finance (this course will be jointly offered by the departments of Management Studies, Computer Science and Engineering and Mathematics for BTech dual degree students).