IIT  Kanpur

History:

IIT Kanpur was established in the year 1959 by an Act of Indian Parliament. Initially it was set up in a single room of the Harcourt Butler technological Institute at Agricultural Gardens in Kanpur. It was shifted to its present location on the Grand Trunk Road in Kanpur district in the year 1963. The institute gained tremendously from the Indo-American Programme, wherein 9 of the best American universities namely MIT, University of Berkeley, Princeton University etc helped in setting up the research laboratories and academic programmes. It is first Institute to have started Computer Science education in India.

Campus:

The campus spreads over an area of 4.3 Km2 (1062 acres). The Institute is equipped with a lot of facilities such as the National Wind Tunnel Facility. It is the only IIT with its own airfield for flight testing and gliding activities. The Computer Centre has about 150 linux terminals and 150 windows terminals which are supported by a super computer, PARAM 10000. It’s the first of its kind Institute to be extensively networked through an Institute-wide LAN and Ethernet connection to every student room.

Hostel:

There are in total 10 hostels in the Institute, 8 are for boys and 2 for girls. The hostels or “Halls of Residence” as they are known in this Institute are provided with all the modern facilities like computers and internet, common television room, recreational areas, sports ground etc.

IIT Kanpur Campus:

The Institute consists of 9 engineering departments and individual departments for Physics, Chemistry, Math and Humanities. In addition it includes 5 centers for research.

Departments:

• Aerospace Engineering
• Biological Sciences and Bioengineering
• Chemical engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Computer Science and Engineering
• Electrical Engineering
• Industrial and Management Engineering
• Materials and Metallurgical Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Chemistry
• Mathematics and Statistics
• Physics
• Humanities and Social Sciences

Centers:

• Advanced Centre for Material Sciences (ACMS)
• Advanced Centre for Electronic  Systems (ACES)
• Centre for Mechatronics
• Centre for Laser Technology
• Computer Aided Design Laboratory
• Prabhu Goel research Centre for Computer and Internet Security
• Samtel Centre for Display Technology

Cultural Activities:

IIT Kanpur organizes 5 major festivals in each academic year. The annual cultural festival is called Antaragni, the annual Science and Technology festival is known as Techkriti, the annual sports festival is Udghosh and Umang is the annual Film Festival. One of the most popular event is Megabucks which is the annual Business Festival. Apart from these the students publish the monthly campus newspaper called “Vox Populi” and a magazine named “Meander”

Alumni:

The Institute is proud of all its alumni for the commendable work all of them are doing, but following are the alumni who have been more popular than the others.

• Ashoke Sen – String Theorist
• N.R. Narayan Murthy – Founder of Infosys
• Rajeev Motwani – Professor at Stanford University and Godel Prize winner, 2001.
• Pradeep Sindhu – Founder of Juniper Networks
• Ashok Jhunjhunwala- Padma Shri awardee
• Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy – Professor at the University of Michigan and a leading scientist in the area of NMR and Biological Membranes
• Duvvuri Subbarao – 22nd Governer of Reserve Bank of India.