IIT Kanpur has opened its first International Office at New York with an aim to gain qualified and capable faculty apart from raising funds for its various initiatives. It is located at 62, William Street in New York.
The office will facilitate various faculty members of foreign universities willing to teach at IIT Kanpur on short and long term basis. The Institute also hopes to connect its alumni in US-Canada region through this International Office.
IIT Kanpur also plans to facilitate research collaboration with other international universities abroad in near future. It is already in talks with international level technical educational institutes and universities about research and other issues. A system to invite the students and faculty of foreign institutes to IIT-K is also being formulated.
It has also appointed Ex-IIT Kanpur Student and noted entrepreneur Sanjeev Khosla as the overseas brand ambassador.
Sanjeev Khosla has been associated with many educational institutions. His tenure is for three years, having commenced on September 1, 2013. He will act as a link between IIT-K, the alumni of the institute who are living abroad and foreign educational institutions, Manna said.
In the backdrop of IITs failing to make it to the top 200 in the QS rankings of the world’s leading universities, IIT-Kanpur Director Indranil Manna had on Sunday alleged corruption in the ranking process of various such agencies and said it was more of a “money game”.
Manna alleged that the ranking process by such agencies was based on the paying capabilities of the institutions.
“The standard of teaching, research and job placement are not the criteria for the ranking, instead it is based on the paying capabilities of the institutions. An amount of one lakh and fifty thousand dollars needs to be paid to get a good ranking in such lists,” he claimed.
“These global rankings are more of a business rather than based on academic performance of institutions,” he said.
Manna said a five-member committee of IIT directors has been constituted, of which he is part of, to look into the issue and understand the methodology of the ranking agencies.
The report by this committee will be submitted to the IIT council, he said.
On IIT-Kanpur ranking at 295 in the ‘QS World University Rankings’, Manna said the institute was placed on the position based on old information provided on its website.
“The ranking should have been after a team would have come to IIT-Kanpur and seen how the institute works. There have been so many students of IIT-Kanpur who have achieved so much on the world stage,” he said.
The list released on September 10 was dominated with US universities, with MIT grabbing the top slot and Harvard at No 2, pushing Britain’s Cambridge University to No 3.
The 11 Indian institutions which featured in the list included IIT-Delhi at 222, IIT-Bombay at 233, IIT-Kanpur at 295, IIT-Madras at 313 and IIT-Kharagpur at 346.