S. Vishnu Sharma
IIT Mandi has made a debut in Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA) by winning 7th rank.
ARIIA ratings are given by Innovation Cell of Union HRD Ministry which is now known as Union Education Ministry of Government of India.
IIT Mandi: Gets 7 in great ARIIA rankings
These rankings were unveiled on 18 August by Vice President of India M. Venkaiah Naidu. Interestingly, IIT Mandi is the only second generation IIT to be featured in ARIIA ratings for this year.
ARIIA ratings which featured IIT Mandi were unveiled by M. Venkaiah Naidu in the presence of Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Union Minister for Education and Sanjay Dhotre, Minister of State for Education.
Speaking about IIT Mandi winning the seventh position, its director Professor Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi said they are ecstatic that their efforts in improving the curriculum through practicum based learning and focus on the entrepreneurial ecosystem is yielding results.
IIT Mandi Catalyst, the first Technology Business Incubator in Himachal Pradesh, has helped over 75 startups since 2017 and is changing both the industry profile and entrepreneurial mindset, he said.
‘We aim to incubate technology-based start-ups focused on economic and/or social impacts. Our aim is to build a start-up and collaborative research ecosystem by working with academic and industry leaders.’
The ARIIA 2020 has given us the reassurance that IIT Mandi is going in the right direction, he said.
A total of 674 institutes had participated in the rankings.
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This year, the rankings had six categories namely Centrally Funded Institutions, Private Institutions, Private/Deemed Universities, State-Funded Autonomous Institutions, State-Funded Universities and Women only higher educational institutions.
ARIIA is an initiative launched by the Ministry of Education, Government of India, and implemented by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and Ministry’s Innovation Cell, Government of India, to systematically rank higher education institutions and universities in India on indicators related to ‘Technology transfer, Innovation, Startup and Entrepreneurship Development’ among students and faculty.
The major indicators/parameters for ARIIA were (a) Programs and Activities on IPR, Innovation, Start-up and Entrepreneurship, (b) Pre Incubation & Incubation Infrastructure & Facilities to Support I&E, (c) Annual Budget Spent on Promoting and Supporting I&E Activities, (d) Courses on Innovation, IPR and Entrepreneurship Development, (e) Intellectual Property (IP), Technology Transfer and Commercialisation, and, (f) Successful Innovation and Start-ups & Funding Innovation & start-ups.
Since the first batch of 97 students joined in July 2009, IIT Mandi has grown to currently host 125 faculty and 1,655 students who are enrolled in various programmes of studies in undergraduate, postgraduate and research programmes, and 1,141 alumni.
IIT Mandi is a fully residential campus with 1.4 lakh sq. m. buildings completed. It has a guest house with 88 rooms, an 750-seater Auditorium, campus school, sports complex and hospital.
IIT Mandi has four Academic Schools and three major Research Centers. The Schools are: School of Computing and Electrical Engineering, School of Basic Sciences, School of Engineering, and School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
The Centers are: Advanced Materials Research Centre (AMRC; set up with an investment of Rs. 60 crore), Centre for Design and Fabrication of Electrical Devices (C4DFED; has Rs. 50 crore worth of fabrication tools), and BioX Centre (has acquired research equipment worth Rs. 15 crore). In 2017, the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, selected IIT Mandi to lead the prestigious Rs. 10 crore FarmerZone Project.
To cater to the growing and changing needs of Indian industry and the aspirations of students, IIT Mandi has introduced 7 B.Tech., 7 M.Tech., 5 M.Sc., 4 Ph.D., 1 I-Ph.D and 1 M.A programmes in the past 10 years.
The unique, project-oriented B.Tech. curriculum is centered around its 4-year long Design and Innovation stream. From August 2019, IIT Mandi started 3 new and unique B. Tech. programmes in Data Science and Engineering, Engineering Physics, and Dual Degree in Bioengineering.
Since the inception of the Institute, IIT Mandi faculty have been involved in over 275 Research and Development (R&D) projects worth more than Rs. 120 crore.
In the past 10 years, the Institute has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with as many as 11 international and 12 national universities.
IIT Mandi Catalyst, first Technology Business Incubator in Himachal Pradesh, has helped over 75 startups since 2017 and is changing both the industry profile and entrepreneurial mindset in the state.
So far, Catalyst has secured external funding of Rs. 24 crore from various funding agencies.
Enabling Women of Kamand Valley (EWOK) is another innovative programme run by IIT Mandi, which focuses on imparting skills training to rural women to enable them to start village-scale businesses.
IIT Mandi has been ranked no. 31 in the Engineering Institutions Category in the India Rankings 2020 released by National Institutional Ranking Framework, Ministry of Human Resources Development, Govt. of India.