Prateek Tanmay
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) celebrated its 59th Convocation Ceremony on Tuesday, awarding degrees to 3,104 students across its undergraduate, postgraduate, and eMasters outreach programmes. The graduating cohort included 1,325 postgraduate students, 1,247 undergraduate students, and 532 students from the eMasters programme.
Dr Pawan Goenka, chairperson, Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), Department of Space, Government of India, an IIT Kanpur alumnus and recipient of the Padma Shri, attended the ceremony as the chief guest.
This year’s graduating cohort comprised 390 PhD recipients, 53 MTech-PhD (Joint Degree) graduates, one MDes-PhD (Joint Degree) graduate, four MS (by Research)-PhD (Joint Degree) graduates, 502 MTech graduates, 852 BTech graduates, 212 BS graduates, 186 MSc (2-year) graduates, 59 MBA graduates, 36 MDes graduates, 66 MS (by Research) graduates, 40 PGPEX-VLFM graduates, 35 Double Major graduates, 107 Dual Degree graduates, 28 MS-PD graduates, and 492 students from the eMasters programme.
The convocation was held over two sessions. The first was held at the Main Auditorium, where outstanding students received institute medals and awards, including the President’s Gold Medal and the Director’s Gold Medals, in the presence of the chief guest. The second session, held across various lecture halls, involved the formal conferring of degrees, led by the Chairperson of the Senate Post-Graduate Committee (SPGC) and the Chairperson of the Senate Under-Graduate Committee (SUGC), mentions the press release.
The President’s Gold Medal was conferred upon Sagar KV (Computer Science and Engineering), while the Director’s Gold Medal was awarded to Aditya V (BS, Statistics and Data Science) and Ritwik Shankar (BT-MT, Aerospace Engineering).
The Ratan Swarup Memorial Prize was presented to Dhruv Budhedeo (BTech, Aerospace Engineering), along with Academic Excellence Awards across various academic programmes and other institute medals recognising achievements in academics, research, leadership, and overall contribution to the institute.
Continuing the institute’s tradition, graduating students attended the ceremony in the recommended convocation attire, with male students dressed in cream-coloured kurtas paired with white pyjamas, and female students wearing cream-coloured kurtas with white churidars or leggings, or cream-coloured sarees, complemented by formal footwear.
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Prof. Manindra Agrawal, Director, IIT Kanpur, addressing the graduates, said: “Over the past 61 years, IIT Kanpur has graduated generations of students. While every generation faces different opportunities and challenges, the values that shape meaningful lives remain timeless. Hold firmly to integrity, honesty, resilience, humility, and respect. These values will shape your decisions long after technical knowledge has changed. Today, while machines can retrieve information, summarize knowledge, and generate solutions in seconds, the true value of human intelligence lies in asking the right questions, exercising sound judgment, connecting ideas across disciplines, making ethical choices, and understanding the human consequences of technology. Keep learning, adapt to change, and build new skills throughout your life.”
