The Indian Institutes of Technology

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) at Kharagpur, Kanpur, Delhi, Bombay, and Madras were established between 1951-1961 by the newly independent Government of India in collaboration with European and American universities and faculty as an effort to expedite India’s technological development. In 1962, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) put together a consortium of nine US Universities to collaborate with IIT-Kanpur through the Kanpur Indo-American Program (KIAP).

Revolution on Ganga: The Making of the Technological Indian
CROPPED

Library, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur

Professor Norman Dahl (1918-2004), Professor of Engineering, led this decade-long program facilitating, establishing collaboration and fostering a strong connection between MIT and IIT-Kanpur.

In time, the IIT Kanpur/MIT system came to dominate all the IITs. The extraordinarily deep and sustained connection between the Institute and the IITs is felt till today as a very large proportion of MIT’s South Asian students and faculty are IIT alums.

IIT computer CROPPED

Installing IBM 1620 computer in 1963 when first laboratory building was under construction

computer

The first computer arriving at IIT-Kanpur Courtesy of Dorothy Dahl

 “India’s problems were not only technological, but also sociological. We have found in America that to stress these studies [humanities] makes very good sense, and it makes even better sense in India.” - Professor Norman Dahl

"Indian MITs"

 "For over 130 years a group of Indians have looked to MIT as a model for technological education in their country with the role of MIT in the Indian imaginary reaching its height with the establishment of the Indian Institutes of Technology, an “Indian MIT”. And as the original five IITs were implemented, although a variety of nations provided mentorship (The Soviet Union, West Germany, Great Britain, and the United States), they all converged on a single model, that of MIT." - Ross Bassett in  The Technological Indian

A large number of MIT’s graduate students and faculty from India are IIT alums.  Having successfully cleared the incredibly difficult and highly selective entrance exam to gain admission into an IIT,. There, they received an education heavily influenced by MIT’s  curricular  emphasis on a strong foundation in the sciences accompanied by the importance of humanities and social sciences.

" There were definite fingerprints of MIT in IIT. A lot of our books were MIT books… We had an airstrip and you could go gliding. That was definitely MIT. " - Sanjay Sarma, Fred Fort Flowers (1941) and Daniel Fort Flowers (1941) Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Vice President, Open Learning (2012-2022), MIT, B.Tech, 1989, IIT-Kanpur
" The MIT ethos of emphasizing technology and engineering was the driving force behind the creation of the IITs … The biggest similarity [between IIT and MIT] is just how amazingly talented and capable and accomplished the student body is… the environment just breeds competition in a good way. " - Pawan Sinha, Professor, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Faculty Director, MISTI India, MIT BTech, IIT Delhi, 1988, Distinguished Alumnus Award, IIT Delhi (2012)
" IIT, Kanpur, was like a microcosm of the MIT curriculum… The idea of engineering being rooted in science came directly out of MIT. It was a radical idea in the 1960s… the idea that studying the humanities and social sciences should be an important part of an engineering education… was something very unique… In terms of education, I was deeply influenced by MIT even though I was 10,000 miles away. " - Mriganka Sur, Newton Professor of Neuroscience, Director, Simons Center for the Social Brain, MIT, BTech, IIT-K, 1974 Narayana Murthy Distinguished Chair, IIT Madras (2015)