Reminiscent of the saying, “If you can dream it, you can do it”, a potent mix of the right people at the right time came together 25 years ago to forge an institute of excellence in Hyderabad that continues to blaze quite a trail. Here are snippets from some of the great minds chronicling its birthing process.

Question: What does Apple’s most successful and hugely popular music digital player, the iPod (remember that one?) have in common with IIITH? 

Answer: It was IIITH’s engineers who played a major role in the development of the media chip (Portal Player) that went into the iPod.  

These and other nuggets of information were shared by the close knit community of bureaucrats, academics, and well-wishers who have jointly conceived of and raised IIITH through its ranks over the years. 

The first IIIT to be set up in India as an autonomous and Not-For-Profit and public private partnership (N-PPP) and in that sense the OG IIIT has riveting tales of its beginnings. Designed in response to the apparent lack of a presence of tech giants in Hyderabad, the former IT Advisor and Special Chief Secretary to the then Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh, Mr. J A Chowdary recalls proposing setting up of an institute of excellence “on the lines of IITs but focused on IT”. When this idea gained the CM’s approval, the team of bureaucrats were offered 200 acres of land in Hyderabad anywhere they wished to implement it.  “I told the CM that as it is we were unable to attract manpower to Hyderrabad and the proposal of giving land, constructing buildings and so on would be very time consuming. Instead, I asked him to give us an existing building from where we could kickstart operations,” narrates Mr. Chowdary.

Tracing his own association with IIITH’s journey, Mr. Ajay Sawhney, Former Secretary to Govt. of India, remarks that he was “enticed” back to Andhra Pradesh from the Centre by Mr. R. Chandrasekhar, the former Secretary to the Indian Department of Information Technology, “He said something big is happening here.” When the concept of having an academic institute nestled among corporate schools of excellence was given the nod, a decision that Mr. Sawhney terms as “dramatic” took place – that of kick starting operations in the same academic year. “It was around 13th or 14th of May 1998. The Govt and the ecosystem was pregnant with the idea and I was the midwife required to deliver the institution,” he quips. It is to the credit of Mr. Sawhney and his team that a month later in June, a nation-wide entrance exam was held admitting 50 of the first-ever batch of students to “an institute with a great dream”. 

The emphasis on research at the undergraduate level has been deliberate. Remarking that we come from a culture of being ‘spoon fed’ information in schools and colleges, Prof. Raj Reddy, Turing Award winner, former chairperson of the IIITH Governing Council and the inspiration behind the institute says that they wanted to pivot the focus on ‘learning to learn’ or ‘learning in the absence of a teacher’ – the ‘Ekalavya Model’.

Apart from the strong academic focus, IIITH has also been known for its stress on human values, preparing students not just for a profession or a job but helping them deal with life. As a self-confessed ‘non-technical’ person, Mr. Ajay Mishra, former Special Chief Secretary to the Govt. of Telangana, who served on the governing board of IIITH, speaks about the impact of the Human Values course whose implementation he supported in other institutes and universities of Telangana. In response to a request from an acquaintance for a “management quota” seat, he received a glimpse of how the institute, with leaders of principle at its helm, walks the talk.

Remarking that he’s a strong believer in an educational eco-system that comprises equally of centrally funded, state-funded as well as the private institutes, Prof. Kalidindi Satyanarayana, Director, IIT Tirupati says, “Whenever there’s a push for additional funding for the IITs, I tell everyone that the whole ecosystem has to be nurtured and everyone has a role to play. IIITH has set a benchmark for everyone to really look up to and take to that particular level.”

For Mr. J Satyanarayana, former Chairman of UIDAI, whose affinity to the institution runs deep, having worked out of its premises “for every single day for 5 years” as the CEO of the National Institute for Smart Governance, he recalls thinking that the institute would go places under Prof. Raj Reddy’s stewardship. “We had a lot of confidence in his vision and also the political leadership that gave importance to this. But I think it has gone beyond what we dreamt of at that stage..,” he muses.

From an initial batch of just 50 students who believed in the vision of the institute to a current strength of 2,000+ students and 100+ faculty, the institute houses the largest AI research group and largest academic startup ecosystem in the country today. And continues to graduate creative, competent and caring individuals who believe in research and education that makes a difference. At a time when IIITH’s graduates are making waves in the tech sphere – industry and academia alike, the piece of trivia about the IIITH talent going into the making of the iPod is not likely to raise too many eyebrows. But we’re talking early 2000s – a time when IIITH was in its infancy. “A royal infant”, nonetheless as per Mr. Ajay Sawhney, that has grown to be a king.