IIT Madras Zanzibar campus inaugurated

The entrance exam for these programmes is based on an eligibility test and personal interview, conducted by IIT Madras. The first batch currently has nearly 50 students (30 in BS, around 15 in MTech).

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras today inaugurated its first ever global campus at Zanzibar.  The campus was inaugurated by H.E Dr Hussein Ali Mwinyi, President of Zanzibar. It was also attended by the IIT Madras director, V. Kamakoti, who witnessed the inauguration through a live stream at the IIT Madras Chennai Campus.

“This is a historic moment as for the first time an IIT campus is being opened abroad. We are now in rapid internalisation, with international institutes in terms of joint degree programmes, faculty exchange, student exchange, and joint research programmes. Having a campus abroad will bring in a much more diverse culture into the IIT system,” he said.

“We were very happy that we chose Africa because we wanted to ensure that we should go to a country where there is a need for IIT. From the point when the idea was flagged to the signing of the MoU, everything was done within six months, thanks to the government of Zanzibar,” he added.

The Zanzibar government is sponsoring the daily functioning of this campus, including the salaries of faculty members. The government has also sanctioned nearly 200 plus acres of land for the permanent campus of IIT Zanzibar. “We have convinced the public sector banks to treat IIT Zanzibar the same as IIT Madras, when giving out loans to Indian students,” the director explained.

The existing campus in Bweleo district, located approximately 15 km south of Zanzibar Town, is equipped with international amenities designed to meet the current needs of students. A permanent campus will be built soon jointly by the Government of Zanzibar and the Government of India.

While the formal campus inauguration took place today, the classes for the first batch of the first off-shore campus started on October 24. The batch currently has nearly 50 students (30 in BS, around 15 in MTech). The class diversity is 50-50 where half of the class comprises of Indian students, and the other half of the class is attended by locals from Zanzibar, mainland Tanzania, Nepal. In the first batch at IITM Zanzibar, 40 per cent of the students are women.

IIT Madras Zanzibar campus is currently offering a four-year Bachelor of Science degree in Data Science and AI, or a two-year Master of Technology degree in Data Science and AI. The courses have been decided as the experts believe these programmes are “leading to a lot of employment potential”. In future, the campus is planning to introduce five more programmes in the next five years.

The entrance exam for these programmes is based on an eligibility test and personal interview, conducted by IIT Madras. The model for this eligibility test has been replicated from an ongoing practice, and “the feedback that we have got from the interview committee is that the students are brilliant,” the director explained.

IIT Zanzibar also became the first IIT to have a female director. Prof Preeti Aghalayam, who was working as a Professor in the Chemical Engineering department at IIT Madras, has now been appointed as the head of the Zanzibar campus.

Students will have access to several opportunities during their course of study, including study abroad/ semester exchange programmes with IITM’s partner institutions in the UK and Australia, among other countries, internships with various relevant companies and a chance to meet some of the course requirements at the IIT Madras campus in Chennai, India.