12th Foundation Day Of IIT Bhubaneswar Celebrated in a Grand Manner

12th Feb 2020, Bhubaneswar: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhubaneswar celebrated its 12th Foundation Day on 12th February 2020. Shri Biswa Bhusan Harichandan, Hon’ble Governor of Andhra Pradesh graced the occasion as Chief Guest and inaugurated the function. Mr. Subroto Bagchi, Chairman, Odisha Skill Development Authority and Co-founder Mind Tree was the Guest of Honour and delivered the Foundation day Lecture on the topic, “In search of Tomorrow”. The event was presided over by Prof. R.V. Raja Kumar, Director, IIT Bhubaneswar.

Prof. R V Raja Kumar, Director, IIT Bhubaneswar says, “On this auspicious occasion, I would like to welcome you all and extended my heart-felt thanks to the Shri. Biswa Bhusan Harichandan, Hon’ble Governor of Andhra Pradesh, Chief Guest and Mr. Subroto Bagchi, Chairman, Odisha Skill Development Authority and Co-founder Mind Tree Guest of Honor Smt. Susmita Bagchi, Chairperson, Mo School for taking time out from their busy schedule and gracing the occasion on 12th Foundation Day. Today on this auspicious day, we have completed 11 long years and when I look back at the last four years that has passed by where we have constantly strived to raise the standards of the operations of the Institute on all fronts such as quality of education including teaching, learning, research and faculty and scaling up the current infrastructure in this endeavour. IIT Bhubaneswar has been prominent among the second generation IITs with largest student intake, prominent rankings across all international and national frameworks, I am very happy that we could bring IIT Bhubaneswar level to that of a Senior IIT where we recently successfully organized a grand Inter IIT Sports Meet in high standards. Being the Director of the Institute, it gives me immense satisfaction to see that the Institute has grown to a level in such a short span of time. However, a lot more needs to be done in the years to come. I would like to reiterate that Institute will gracefully keep contributing to the societal development and progress of the nation with dedicated student and faculty engagements from time to time.”

Shri Biswa Bhusan Harichandan, Hon’ble Governor of Andhra Pradesh, Chief Guest says, “It fills my heart with great joy to visit IIT Bhubaneswar and exclusively to be amongst all of you on its twelfth Foundation Day. As you know, this Institute started twelve years ago as a member of the extended family of the IIT system, which has added to the traditional belief that Bhubaneswar to Temple City to also as a hub of Education and Knowledge by emerging as a leading institution with the co-existence of several other premier Institutions of the country in the domains of science (NISER), medical (AIIMS), research (IIMT and IoP) etc., to name a few along with this great vibrant IIT. I am glad to understand that just within a little more than one decade of its existence, the Institute has started new Schools and new academic programmes on par with any other similar Institutions known for several decades in this country. I am delighted to learn that the Institute has made its presence known globally by taking commendable proactive steps in getting international faculty and international collaborative projects and rising steeply improving its standards for getting recognized as a highly ranked institute globally. My congratulations are due especially to your Director Professor R. V. Raja Kumar, who, with tireless efforts and exemplary sincerity, has successfully led the Institute to achieve new heights. I just heard of successful co-organization of one of the highly acclaimed events in IIT system – the Inter IIT sports demonstrates the readiness to take up any challenges to showcase the strength of the Institute. I call upon all of you to be technological leaders and social entrepreneurs and be the change agents to transform our country to be one of the most developed countries of the world. Lastly, I wish IIT Bhubaneswar grand success in all its endeavours.”

Mr. Subroto Bagchi, Chairman, Odisha Skill Development Authority and Co-founder Mind Tree, Guest of Honour in his foundation day lecture in search of tomorrow says, “It is a privilege to be with you today. I deem it an honour for both myself that you have invited me to be with you for the 12th Foundation Day Celebrations. I want to congratulate all of you on the occasion and acknowledge the great work done by each one of you; your dedication and sense of purpose makes us a grateful nation. As I look at the Educational Institution like yours, it requires time and is a process of infrastructure creation. The base is physical infrastructure and physical infrastructure can be created by anyone. But beyond physical infrastructure comes the digital infrastructure in this world. But differentiation comes when they build Intellectual infrastructure and that is what makes one Institution different from the other institution. Anybody can create a large building but very few can come close to creating something like an IIT. The difference between all premier Institutions like IIT is their Intellectual Infrastructure which they have built over a period of time. Intellectual infrastructure in spite of having differentiation in today’s world which is hyper connected is very temporal . Earlier differentiation used to last for ages but in today's world of internet connectivity, it has a very short span of time. When we built educational Institutions in research, differentiation alone is not enough, we need to think beyond it and create memorability and IITs truly define memorability. To build memorability, educational Institution must go well beyond the physical, intellectual, digital infrastructure and it needs to create what we call as emotional infrastructure. The IIT’s, NIT’s, Stanfords, Harvards of the world is not just about physical, digital and intellectual infrastructure, they actually stand for something that is known as emotional infrastructure. Now what builds emotional infrastructure needs to be looked across and for IIT Bhubaneswar as it goes forward to building great emotional infrastructure for it to be in the global class of Institutions in its journey ahead as dreamt by Prof. R.V Raja Kumar, Director, IIT Bhubaneswar. .

Mr. Subroto Bagchi also talked about adversity and considering it as an opportunity as it give character. He gave emphasis on vision, leadership backed by strong research, uniqueness of rituals. Rich communication, adversity, creating of voluntary networks, building and abiding on vision and exclusivity before ending his speech. He along with Smt. Susmita Bagchi wished the Institution good luck for their journey ahead.

The day witnessed successful execution and organizing of Open Day and Exhibition in the campus spanning across all of its schools from 09:30 AM to 5: 30 PM which attracted active participation from students of various Schools and Colleges within and outside Odisha. In this Grand exhibition, the Institute faculty and students showcased the science and technology initiatives undertaken in various areas, such as Energy, Materials, Healthcare, Engineering, Physics, Chemistry and Biosciences at IIT Bhubaneswar through simple, easy to understand 250+ live experiments and exhibits. The motto was to promote and ignite the scientific learning curiosity among the students especially the girl child in particular, across all schools and colleges of Science and Engineering. It turned out to be an exciting and enriching experience for all the participating students. All the visiting students and volunteers are provided with hygienic lunch using contributions from several sponsors and Institute end. More than 8000 +students from various schools and colleges participated in this programme. On this day students excellence and faculty awards were also distributed.

The inaugural ceremony ended with vote of thanks. Also present during the event were Prof. R.K. Panda, Dean Alumni Affairs & International Relations, Prof. Sujit Roy, Dean Research and Development (R & D), Prof. V R Pedireddi, Dean Student Affairs, Dr. P R Sahu Dean Faculty & Planning I/C and Dean Academic Affairs, Col (Dr) Subodh Kumar, Registrar, Shri Debraj Rath, Joint Registrar and Dr. Sankarsan Mahapatro, President, Student Gymkhana, IIT Bhubaneswar.