Kanpur: The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) celebrated its 59th convocation ceremony on Wednesday, with 3,104 students graduating from a diverse range of disciplines. The graduating cohort comprised 1,325 postgraduate students, 1,247 undergraduate students and 532 students from the eMasters outreach degree programmes.The chief guest at the convocation was Dr Pawan Goenka, an IIT Kanpur alumnus and chairperson of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), Department of Space, Govt of India.The ceremony was presided over by Jayant Patil, officiating chairperson of the Board of Governors, IIT Kanpur, along with Prof. Manindra Agrawal, director, IIT Kanpur.Held over two sessions, the convocation began with a gathering at the main auditorium, where outstanding students received institute medals and awards, including the President’s Gold Medal and the Director’s Gold Medals.The second session, conducted across various lecture halls, involved the formal conferring of degrees under the leadership of the chairperson of the Senate Post-Graduate Committee (SPGC) and the chairperson of the Senate Under-Graduate Committee (SUGC).Speaking at the ceremony, Dr Pawan Goenka said: “I have learnt that life is not a 100-metre sprint won in the first few metres. It is a long engineering project, full of failed prototypes and design iterations, where the first version of anything is rarely the final one. Growth, more often than not, begins with discomfort. If I were to leave you with five lessons, they would be these: never give up, take big bets, trust people, never believe you are too old to learn something new, and always listen to your heart.”Prof. Manindra Agrawal, Director, IIT Kanpur, addressing the graduates, said: “Over the past 61 years, IIT Kanpur has graduated generations of students. While every generation faces different opportunities and challenges, the values that shape meaningful lives remain timeless”.This year’s graduating cohort comprised 390 PhD recipients, 53 MTech-PhD (Joint Degree) graduates, one MDes-PhD (Joint Degree) graduate, four MS (by Research)-PhD (Joint Degree) graduates, 502 MTech graduates, 852 BTech graduates, 212 BS graduates, 186 MSc (2-year) graduates, 59 MBA graduates, 36 MDes graduates, 66 MS (by Research) graduates, 40 PGPEX-VLFM graduates, 35 Double Major graduates, 107 Dual Degree graduates, 28 MS-PD graduates, and 492 students from the eMasters programme.During the ceremony, IIT Kanpur recognised exceptional academic achievement and all-round excellence by presenting its prestigious institute medals and awards. The President’s Gold Medal was conferred upon Sagar K. V. (Computer Science and Engineering), while the Director’s Gold Medal was awarded to Aditya V. (BS, Statistics and Data Science) and Ritwik Shankar (BT-MT, Aerospace Engineering). Other distinguished honours included the Ratan Swarup Memorial Prize, presented to Dhruv Budhedeo (BTech, Aerospace Engineering), along with Academic Excellence Awards across various academic programmes and other institute medals, recognising outstanding achievements in academics, research, leadership, and overall contribution to the Institute.
