IIT Kanpur nets US$ 4.25 million alumni donations

Virendra Singh Rawat

Lucknow / June 10, 2021

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur has received alumni donations worth US$ 4.25 million for promoting education and research in different fields.

The dollar denominated donations have been made by two high profile alumni of the Institute viz. Muktesh Pant and Dev Joneja, who have contributed US$ 2.5 million and US$ 1.75 million respectively.

While, IIT Kanpur had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Micky and Vinita Pant Charitable Fund for establishing the School of Medical Research and Technology (SMRT) in March 2021, Joneja is now funding the setting up of Smt Pavitar Joneja Chair, in honour of his mother, in the Humanities and Social Science Department at the campus.

“The Smt Pavitar Joneja Chair is a platform for students to undertake intensive research and broaden their knowledge on subjects related to Humanities and Social Sciences. Over the years, Dr Dev Joneja has made significant contributions towards his alma mater,” IIT Kanpur director Prof Abhay Karandikar observed.

 Joneja serves as the Chief Risk Officer at Exodus Point Capital Management. He previously worked as the Global Head Risk and Analytics at Millennium Management LLC. Earlier, he was with Lehman Brothers for 13 years serving as the Head of European Fixed Income Research and as the Global Head of Lehman Indices and Point.

Besides, he has also served on the faculty at the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University, New York.

Joneja is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1984. He has already instituted the Arjun Dev Joneja Faculty Chair in honour of his father at the Department of Civil Engineering.

“The courses in Humanities and Social Sciences I took at IIT played a much bigger role in my career than I appreciated at the time, and I would like to support this part of every IIT student’s education,” he noted.

The other alumni, Pant has obtained his B Tech in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1976. In a career spanning about 35 years, he held senior positions in top MNCs including Hindustan Unilever, PepsiCo, Reebok and Yum Brands. Later, he went on to lead YUM! China as the CEO of the firm, when it was spun off as a listed entity.

SMRT will bring together the expertise of engineering technologies, biomedical research and clinical set-up under a single umbrella to create a one-of-its-kind world-class medical school in India. SMRT will produce outstanding medical professionals trained in state-of-art engineering technologies who can meet the future healthcare needs of our country.

“IIT Kanpur has always been renowned for leading the way in engineering education and this focus on bringing engineering excellence to medical technology has the potential to create many healthcare miracles in future,” Pant had said.