Aiming at two patents a day and having a start-up born on campus every third day, as its goal for 2024-25, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)- Madras raised the highest CSR funding of Rs 513 crore and another Rs 1,500 crore in terms of sponsored research and consultancy for industry projects in the 2023-24 fiscal — the highest ever for it and probably the largest by an institute in India.
The CSR funds are aimed at supporting projects like student scholarships, boosting research and creating infrastructure, among others.
IIT-Madras that has been ranked as the topmost institute in the country in the National Institutional Rankings Framework (NIRF) 2024, consecutively for the sixth year in the ‘overall’ category and ninth time in a row in the ‘engineering’ category.
The institute’s director Prof V Kamakoti recently announced that his goal for 2024-25 is to have 100 start-ups being born on the institute by next year.
“This is one of the national priorities of boosting innovation and entrepreneurship that we are working on with a target to have a start-up being born on campus every third day, which means 20-25 per cent of our graduating batch are already Chief Technology Officers (CTOs). This is also what makes us keep ahead in the rankings, which is basically doing something new every year,” he said.
Also, he said, the institute has filed 380 patents in the last financial year and now we aim at filing two patents a day. “My faculty told me we can aim at two patents a day this year and this is another goal for the year,” he added.
In the 2023-24 fiscal, more than 1,000 donors contributed to IIT-Madras, leading to a total of Rs 513 crore. This is a 135 per cent increase from the Rs 218 crore raised in the previous year. The number of donors giving over Rs 1 crore to the Institute is 48 (16 alumni donors and 32 Corporate Partners). The funds were raised from IIT Madras alumni and individual philanthropists in addition to CSR funds and grants from Indian as well as Multinational Corporate firms.
This is not all. Prof Mahesh Panchagnula, dean, Alumni and Corporate Relations, IIT-Madras, said that the CSR funding is besides the Rs 1500 crore that the institute has got from industry partners in different forms. “This is the non-government money that the institute has received in different forms such as sponsored research and consultation for various industry projects that they need subject matter expertise from the institute. The institute has been helping out the industry solve its problems in every sphere. So, if we look at it then the total funding that the institute has generated on its own is over Rs, 2000 crore, which is probably the largest by any institute in India or for that matter in any such institution in Europe,” he said.
A good part of the CSR funding has been used to build the new sports centre for students. It is for them to go out and play, a busy place even on a weekday, he added.
It has also helped fund important projects such as a school of Data Science and AI, sports excellence admission programme, a centre for diabetes research and another for sustainable supply chains.
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