A total of 2,084 students graduated during the 59th Convocation of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), during which the 60,000th degree of the Institute since its inception was also presented.
As many as 2,620 degrees (including Joint and Dual Degrees) were awarded to the students on the occasion. The convocation was held in physical mode after a gap of two years.
A total of 306 PhDs were also awarded, which includes PhDs, Joint Degree Ph.Ds with foreign institutions and Dual Degree PhDs.
Padma Bhushan N Chandrasekaran Chairman, Tata Sons, Dr. Pawan Goenka, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Madras, presided over the convocation in the presence of V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, faculty, staff and students.
In his convocation address, Chandrasekaran said, “It is a great privilege for all of you to have studied in this wonderful institution and I am pretty sure, it has prepared in you in multiple different ways that you probably may not recognise today.”
Speaking about the opportunities for the graduating students, he said “I think it is an exciting time to start ones’ career, and definitely so in India. Ourbeconomy has grown 100 times in the 75 years since 1947 to today. Our economy was 50 per cent agriculture at that time. Now, it is less than 20 per cent. Nobody would have predicted India would play a significant role in technology sector.”.
Stating that the country’s per capita GDP is going to increase significantly in the next decade and decades to come, he said it is clear that it is going to be a digital world and a digital economy.