IIT KANPUR

HISTORY

IIT Kanpur was established by an Act of PARLIAMENT in 1959. The institute was started in December 1959 in a room in the canteen building of the  HARCOURT BUTLER INSTITUTE at Agricultural Gardens in Kanpur. In 1963, the institute moved to its present location, on the GRAND TRUNK ROAD near the village of Kalyanpur in Kanpur district.

During the first ten years of its existence, IIT Kanpur benefited from the Kanpur Indo-American Programme (KIAP), where a consortium of nine US universities (namely M.I.T. UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA INSITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY,  University of MICHIGAN, Ohio State University, Case Institute of Technologyand, Purdue University) helped set up the research laboratories and academic programmes.The first Director of the Institute was P. K. Kelkar (after whom the Central Library was renamed in 2002).

Under the guidance of economist John Kenneth Galbraith, IIT Kanpur was the first institute in India to offer Computer Science education.^[3] The earliest computer courses were started at IIT Kanpur in August 1963 on an IBM 1620 system. The initiative for computer education came from the Electrical Engineering department, then under the chairmanship of Prof. H.K. Kesavan, who was concurrently the chairman of Electrical Engineering and head of the Computer Centre. Prof. Harry Huskey of the University of California, Berkeley, who preceded Kesavan, was instrumental in providing the impetus for the computer activity at IIT-Kanpur. In 1971, the institute initiated an independent academic program in Computer Science and Engineering, leading to M.Tech. and Ph.D. degrees.

In 1972 the KIAP program ended, in part because of tensions due to the U.S. support of Pakistan. Government funding was also reduced as a reaction to the sentiment that the IIT's were contributing to the brain drain. Since then IIT Kanpur has increased collaboration with industry and has achieved a reasonable level of stability.

CAMPUS

IIT Kanpur is located on the Grand Trunk Road, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) west of Kanpur City and measures close to 420 hectares (1,000 acres). The campus can be reached from Lucknow airport in two hours. IIT Kanpur is about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) from the Kanpur Central Railway Station. This land was gifted by the Government of Uttar Pradesh in 1960 and by March 1963 the Institute had moved to its current location.

The institute has around 5,400 students with 3,400 undergraduate students and 2000 postgraduate students.

Academic Area

Institute's Academic Area comprises academic buildings, various departments, facilities like PK Kelkar Library, Computer Centre and Incubation Centre. It also houses faculty offices, laboratories and administrative buildings. The academic area is well connected by a long corridor which links all the major buildings. The academic area is set up in vicinity of Hostels to provide quick accessibility to students.

Halls of Residence

IIT Kanpur has well built modern infrastructure for promoting student's personal growth. The institute has 10 boys' hostels and 2 girls' hostels fondly called as 'Halls of Residence'. Each hall is equipped with excellent sports and computing facilities besides institute's common facilities. Every Hall has its own Mess, Canteen, Basketball Court, Badminton Court, TT table, Reading room (for newspapers, magazines etc.), shops for purchasing common daily items. Hostels are spacious and have lots of open spaces and gardens. Also, each hall has a Hall Executive Committee (HEC), a student body that takes care of various administrative affairs of the hall. IIT Kanpur enjoys vibrant student culture where students from different backgrounds bring different tastes of life with them.

Students' Activity Centre (SAC)

SAC is place for most of the students activities. There are two buildings for SAC, one is older one and the other (New-SAC) is recently built. New-SAC also has an open air theatre (OAT) with capacity of over 1400 persons. The SAC is maintained and managed by the Students' Gymkhana at IIT Kanpur with the President, Students' Gymkhana being the warden of the SAC.

Sports Facilities

The Institute provides excellent facilities and infrastructure for promoting sports activities on the campus. The facilities include -

§                    Main Stadium

§                    Cricket Field

§                    Football Field

§                    Hockey Field

§                    Olympic size Swimming Pool

§                    Synthetic Tennis courts

§                    Badminton Courts

§                    Basketball Courts

§                    Volleyball Courts

§                    Skating rink

§                    Squash courts

§                    Gymnasium

§                    Yoga hall

§                    Artificial rock climbing

DEPARTMENTS

                 The academic departments at IIT Kanpur are

      Engineering

§         Aerospace Engineering

§         Biological Sciences and Bioengineering

§         Chemical Engineering

§         Civil Engineering

§         Computer Science and Engineering

§         Electrical Engineering

§         Materials Science and Engineering

§         Mechanical Engineering

Humanities and social sciences.

§         Economics

§         English

§         Fine Arts

§         Philosophy

§         Psychology

§         Sociology

§         Management

§         Industrial and Management Engineering

     Sciences

§         Chemistry

§         Mathematics and Statistics

§         Physics

    Inter Disciplinary

§         Environmental Engineering and Management

§         Laser Technology

§         Master of Design

§         Materials Science Program

§         Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Laboratories and other facilities

The campus is spread over an area of 4.3 square kilometres (1,100 acres). Institute facilities include the National Wind Tunnel Facility. Other large research centres include the Advanced Centre for Material Science, a Bio-technology centre, the Advanced Centre for Electronic Systems, and the Samtel Centre for Display Technology, Centre for Mechatronics, Centre for Laser Technology, Prabhu Goel Research Centre for Computer and Internet Security, Facility for Ecological and Analytical Testing. The departments have their own libraries.

The institute has its own AIRFIELD, for flight testing and gliding.

PK Kelkar Library (formerly Central Library) is an academic library of the institute with a collection of more than 300,000 volumes, and subscriptions to more than 1000 periodicals. The library was renamed to its present name in 2003 after Dr. PK KELKAR, the first director of the institute. It is housed in a three-story building, with a total floor area of 6973 square metres floor area. The Abstracting and Indexing periodicals, Microform and CD-ROM databases. technical reports, Standards and thesis are part of the collection. Each year, about 4500 books and journal volumes are added to the collection.

 The Computer Centre has about 200-300 Linux terminals and more than 100 Windows-NT terminals supported by the PARAM 10000 supercomputer, and is continuously available to the students for academic work and recreation. It hosts about 50 SUN workstations. The IITs (and especially IIT Kanpur) and BITS Pilani are among the first large academic institutions in India to be networked, with an institute-wide LAN and Ethernet access to every student room in the residence halls.

A team of students, working under the guidance of faculty members of the institute and scientists of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have designed and built India's first nano satellite JUGNU, which was successfully launched in orbit on 12 Oct 2011 by ISRO's PSLV-C18.

Students' research related activity

Research is controlled by the Office of the Dean of Research and Development. Under the aegis of the Office the students publish the quarterly NERD Magazine (Notes on Engineering Research and Development) which publishes scientific and technical content created by students. Articles may be original work done by students in the form of hobby projects, term projects, internships, or theses. Articles of general interest which are informative but do not reflect original work are also accepted.

Along with the magazine a student research platform PoWER (Promotion of Work Experience and Research) has been started. Under it several independent student groups are working on projects like the Lunar Rover for ISRO, alternate energy solutions under the Group for Environment and Energy Engineering, ICT solutions through a group Young Engineers, solution for diabetes, green community solutions through ideas like zero water and zero waste quality air approach. A budget of Rs 1.5 to 2 crore has been envisaged to support student projects that demonstrate technology.

Jugnu (satellite)

The students of IIT Kanpur made a nano satellite called Jugnu, This small satellite was given by president PRATIBHAA PATIL to ISRO for launch. . Jugnu is an Indian technology demonstration and remote sensing satellite which will be operated by the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. It is a nanosatellite which will be used to provide data for agriculture and disaster monitoring. It is a 3-kilogram (6.6 lb) spacecraft, which measures 34 centimetres (13 in) in length by 10 centimetres (3.9 in) in height and width. Its development programme cost around 25 million rupee. It has a design life of one year. Jugnu's primary instrument is the Micro Imaging System, a near infrared camera which will be used to observe vegetation. It also carries a GPS receiver to aid tracking, and is intended to demonstrate a microelectromechanical inertial measurement unit. Jugnu will be launched into low Earth orbit by a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle flying from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre. The launch is currently scheduled to occur during 2011

The institute is part of the European Research and Education Collaboration with Asia (EURECA) programme since 2008.

SIDBI Innovation and Incubation Centre

IIT Kanpur has set up the SIDBI Innovation and Incubation Centre in collaboration with the Small Industries development Bank of India (SIDBI) to foster innovation, research, and entrepreneurial activities in technology-based areas. SIIC provides a platform to business Start-ups to develop their ideas into commercially viable products.

SIDBI Innovation and Incubation Centre (SIIC) conducted the NEETECH Summer Program 2007 for engineering students from all over India at IIT Kanpur Campus.

Admission

Undergraduate admissions FROM  2013 are being done through the national-level EXAM UNDER THE NAME ISEET. Following the Ministry of Human Resource Development's decision

Postgraduate admissions are made through the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering {GATE}

FEES STRUCTURE