378 get doctoral degrees at Iit-delhi, highest ever
NEWDELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT-D), witnessed the highest number of doctoral graduates during its 49th convocation ceremony on Saturday. The institution gave away 378 doctoral degrees, 72 more than last year’s tally of 306 degrees.
Iit-delhi director V Ramagopal Rao said the institution is trying to attract more PHD students on campus.
“The number of PHD scholars at IIT-D has increased considerably over the years. It is a moment of pride for us that over 60% of the registered students at IIT-D are currently post-graduation and PHD students,” he said.
The institution is also planning to start “PHD incubators” to encourage research scholars to become entrepreneurs.
“We are encouraging research scholars to work on startups as they have more expertise and specialisation. Presently, most of the startups in the country are by Btech students, who are equally talented. But we need more expertise to harness deep technology. Currently, less than 1% of PHD students opt for entrepreneurship,” Rao said.
The PHD incubators will be set-up at IIT-D’S campus in Sonipat.
“The institution will also provide them stipend for three years to convert their thesis into startups,” Rao maintained.
The theme of this year’s convocation was “women empowerment”.
The institute had invited businesswomen Anu Agha as the chief guest. “IIT-D had registered 53% increase in the total number of women candidates this year. The actual number increased from 91 in 2017 to 139 in 2018 . Postgraduate and PHD programmes are continuously seeing an increase in number of women candidates which stands at around 28% at present. So, we decided to dedicate this year’s theme to women empowerment,” he said.
Besides PHD degrees, the institution on Saturday gave away degrees and diplomas to 852 undergraduate and 834 postgraduate students.