Published on April 17, 2023
AHMEDABAD: Premier institutes in the city have been harnessing the power of their alumni to empower themselves to reach their full potential and boost the employability of their current students. At IIT Gandhinagar (IIT-Gn), funding by alumni in three years – from 2019-20 to 2022-23 – nearly doubled from Rs 36 lakh to Rs 69 lakh. The increase is owing to initiatives such as the ‘Alumni Giving Campaign’ that had about 55% of the former students contributing.
Prof Jaison Manjaly, professor-in-charge of alumni relations at IIT-Gn, said that the institute is relatively young, and the alumni are in early phases of their professional careers. “Even then, their donations have increased year after year, creating new records. These have almost doubled in the past three years,” he said.
In fact, out of 23 alumni-endowed scholarships at the young IIT, nearly half have been set up in the last two financial years.
IIT-Gn is not the only institute recording the phenomenon.
The season of convocations and major campus events this year underscored the role played by the alumni in shaping the future of the premier educational institutes.
After the two years of Covid pandemic, their engagements with the institutes range from financial funding to interacting with the present batches to conducting alumni meets and setting up chairs.
The top brasses of several institutes have travelled over the past couple of years to connect with the stakeholders in India and abroad.
Prof Manjaly added that in all, 85% of the alumni have contributed to the institution in some way or other. “We believe that it might be among the highest for institutions of higher education anywhere. They have remained our brand ambassadors and we also consider them our family. They get access to resources on a par with the students which includes the hostel, library and networking opportunities,” he said.
Parth Shastri Archive 