English
New Delhi: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi has a history of producing famous personalities who curved a niche in their respective fields. From Kiran Bedi, the first female IPS officer of India, to noted economist Raghuram Rajan to Sachin and Binny Bansal, the founders of Flipkart, the institute proudly owns its rich alumni who have been playing a pivotal role in nation’s development.
IIT-D is known for producing top entrepreneurs, scientists, economists, politicians and lawyers for years, and has always kept a distinct place among the top five IITs, out of the 23 in India. It was established in collaboration with the British government, which agreed for a College of Engineering and Technology in Delhi. The foundation stone was laid by Prince Philip, then Duke of Edinburgh, during his visit to India at Hauz Khas on January 28, 1959.
Kiran Bedi, who did her Ph.D. from IIT-D’s Department of Social Sciences in 1993, became the first Indian female officer in the Indian Police Service and started her service in 1972.
She remained in service for 35 years before taking voluntary retirement in 2007 as the Director General, Bureau of Police Research and Development. She also served as the 24th Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry from May 2016 to February 2021. In 1994, Bedi was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award and the Nehru Fellowship. The Magsaysay Foundation recognised her leadership and innovations in crime control, drug rehabilitation, and humane prison reform.
Raghuram G. Rajan, who received his Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from IIT-D in 1985 along with the Director’s Gold Medal for all-round performance, became the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India.
He is currently working as a professor at the University of Chicago, and also as the Economic Counselor and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Rajan is one of the top researchers in the world in the fields of economics and finance. He has won an array of prestigious awards, including three consecutive Brattle prizes for distinguished papers in the Journal of Finance.
Sachin and Binny Bansal, who received their B. Tech degree in computer science & engineering from IIT-D in 2005, built one of the largest ecommerce marketplaces in India. Flipkart has been ranked among the 10 most valuable startups in the world by the Wall Street Journal.
Sachin led Flipkart as its CEO from its inception in 2007 till 2015, and took over as the Executive Chairman in 2016. He is currently leading and mentoring the startup and internet ecosystem in India and is an angel investor in several technology startups.
Binny served as the Chief Operating Officer of Flipkart till January 2016 before being promoted as its Chief Executive Officer. He exited Flipkart in November 2018, and became a prolific angel investor who now mentors over 30 investments in the startup ecosystem. He recently co-founded another technology company named xto10x Technologies, to achieve his vision of helping startups.
Deepinder Goyal, who received an integrated M.Tech in mathematics and computing from IIT-D in 2005, became the founder of one of the largest food aggregators in the world — Zomato.
Under his leadership, the startup, which began as a platform for restaurant review and discovery in Delhi-NCR, has grown into a company synonymous with food in over 500+ cities in India. Prior to founding Zomato in 2008, Goyal worked as a management consultant with Bain & Company.
Vinod Khosla, who received his B.Tech degree in electrical engineering from IIT-D in 1976, is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems and the founder of Khosla Ventures.
Khosla is an Indian-American billionaire businessman and venture capitalist. In 2014, Forbes counted him among the 400 richest persons in the US. In 2020, he was listed No 353 on the Forbes 400 list.
Chetan Bhagat is a renowned Indian author and columnist. He was included in Time magazine’s list of World’s 100 Most Influential People in 2010. Bhagat graduated in mechanical engineering at IIT Delhi and completed a PGP at IIM Ahmedabad. He started his career as an investment banker but left it after a few years to pursue writing. He has written ten novels and three non-fiction books. His first novel, Five Point Someone, was published in 2004. His novels have been listed as bestsellers.
Sameer Gehlot
A company which started in a office with tin roofs and 2 computers in 2000 now has a market capitalization of more than 25000 crores (USD 5 Billion). If the opening line interests you, read further. Indiabulls is a saga of IIT entrepreneurial success stories. The company was found by Sameer Gehlaut of IIT Delhi. He was a mechanical engineering student in 1995. He along with Saurabh Mittal and Rajiv Ranjan started Indiabulls as pioneer company in online brokerage business segment during the start of e-commerce in India.
Rajat Kumar Gupta is an Indian-American businessman and convicted felon who, as CEO, was the first foreign-born managing director of management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company from 1994 to 2003. In 2012, he was convicted for insider trading and spent two years in jail.
Gupta was a board member of corporations including Goldman Sachs, Procter & Gamble and American Airlines, and an advisor to non-profits such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Image Courtesy: Wikipedia
Padmasree Warrior is an Indian-American businesswoman and technology executive. She is known for her leadership roles in technology firms like Cisco where she served as the CTO for seven years, and at Motorola where she was the CTO for five years.
She also served as the CEO of NIO USA, an electric car maker. Currently, she is the founder and CEO of Fable, a curated reading platform focused on mental wellness.[1] She also serves on the board of directors of Microsoft and Spotify.
Established in 1961, IIT-D was the fifth such institute after Kharagpur (1951), Bombay (1958), Madras (1959) and Kanpur (1959). IIT-D is known for producing top entrepreneurs, scientists, economists, politicians and lawyers for years, and has always kept a distinct place among the top five IITs, out of the 23 in India.
It was established in collaboration with the British government, which agreed for a College of Engineering and Technology in Delhi. The foundation stone was laid by Prince Philip, then Duke of Edinburgh, during his visit to India at Hauz Khas on January 28, 1959.
It was formally inaugurated on August 17, 1961 and was affiliated to the University of Delhi.
In 2018, IIT-D was one of the first six institutes to be awarded the Institute of Eminence status, which granted almost-full autonomy in that they will be able to admit foreign students up to 30 per cent of the admitted students and recruit foreign faculty up to 25 per cent of the faculty strength with enhanced research funding.
IIT-D has a sprawling campus of 325 acres located in Hauz Khas. It also has two satellite campuses in Sonipat and Jhajjar. Internationally, IIT-D was ranked 185 in the QS World University Rankings of 2021. The same rankings had ranked it 43 in Asia in 2020 and 18 among BRICS nations in 2019.
For breaking news and live news updates, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Read more on Latest India News on India.com.
