From the Director's Desk

Talent and ambition are not questions of geography

Welcome to IIIT Raichur.

When I joined this Institute as founding Director in December 2022, I inherited an idea more than an institution — a small, determined community operating out of a transit campus, with a permanent home still on the drawing board. From the August 2026 academic session, that idea became a functioning reality: our students now call Wadavatti home, with academic blocks, residential hostels, and faculty residences in place, and our laboratories, digital library, and sports infrastructure continuing to take shape in the phases ahead. To further expand student accommodation, we have also secured a Rs. 61 crore HEFA-financed loan for a new 674-bedded hostel — one more sign, alongside a growing research footprint, of a community of faculty, staff, and students building something genuinely new in this part of the country.

I share this not to recount an institutional history, but because I believe it says something about what this Institute is for. IIIT Raichur was established under a Public-Private Partnership between the Ministry of Education, the Government of Karnataka, and KPCL, and exists to extend world-class technology education beyond the metropolitan centres that have traditionally hosted it — to make the case that talent and ambition are not questions of geography. Every milestone we've reached, from our permanent campus to our AI Centre of Excellence, ARIA, has been in service of that idea, and owes a great deal to the strength of that founding partnership.

My own path to this role has been unconventional in some ways. I spent 39 years at CSIR-CSIO, Chandigarh, rising from Scientist to Chief Scientist, working on scientific instrumentation, sensors, and imaging systems, alongside more than a decade building and teaching within the Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research's Ph.D. programmes. That combination — hands-on scientific work alongside sustained academic leadership — shapes how I think about what this Institute should be: rigorous in its research, but never disconnected from the practical realities of building something that lasts.

We are still deciding what kind of place this will become, and our students, faculty, and staff all have a genuine hand in shaping that. In the past few years alone, we've expanded from a single academic programme to three, recruited faculty and non-teaching staff regularly every year since 2023, introduced credit-bearing courses in mental health and disaster preparedness because we believe technical training and personal resilience must go together, and built research and industry partnerships that stretch from regional entrepreneurship initiatives to national AI infrastructure.

None of this happens in isolation. I'm grateful to our Board of Governors, Senate, and Building Works Committee for their steady guidance; to the Ministry of Education, the Government of Karnataka, and our industry partners for their continued support; and most of all, to the faculty, staff, and students who show up here every day and make this Institute what it is.

If you're a prospective student, I'd encourage you to look past the newness of this place and see it for what it actually offers: close mentorship, a campus still being shaped by the people in it, and an education built around solving real problems, not just passing exams. If you're a parent, know that we take seriously the trust you place in us. And if you're a prospective partner — in industry, in research, or in government — I'd welcome the conversation.

Thank you for taking the time to learn more about IIIT Raichur. I hope you'll find, as I have, that there's something worth being part of here.