The university has earlier received sizeable donations from its alumni for specific causes.The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi is planning to establish an alumni endowment fund that will assist in the institute’s functioning. IIT had earlier asked its alumni to pledge a part of their assets to the institute, particularly those of the golden jubilee and silver jubilee celebration batches.
“In recent reunions, particularly the golden and silver jubilee celebrations, a new trend has started. Each of the batches that have attended the recent reunions are setting up an endowment fund at IIT Delhi. The funds for each of these is between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore. The batch will decide how the money will be used. I would like to encourage all alumni batches to set up endowment funds like this,” Dean Alumni Affairs Sanjeev Sanghi said at the IIT Alumni Day Sunday.
“In fact, we will soon be coming up with a large endowment called the IIT Delhi Endowment, which is like an endowment that western universities have. This will be of a large scale. We hope that eventually the interest or the earnings of the endowment will be able to take care of the running of IIT Delhi. It is a very tall dream, but we would like to do it,” he added.
The university has earlier received sizeable donations from its alumni for specific causes. Ramesh Kapur from the 1968 batch had pledged one million dollars to the institute, while Amarjeet Bakshi, also from the same batch, gave Rs 1 crore and pledged to give the same amount each year for the next 10 years.
The Alumni Day also saw entrepreneurs pitching their start-ups to investors. One of the start-ups was a digital prescription model worked on by Mumbai-based opthalmologist Vandana Jain, along with a co-partner.
The idea of the start-up is to digitise the experience of seeking consultation from doctors. The start-up would provide digital pens and a prescription note to doctors, along with a tablet. As soon as a doctor writes with a pen on the prescription paper, it will appear on the tablet. Another start-up was a superfood snack brand, which has already made two products available in markets in Lucknow and on the Amazon app. The idea is to provide consumers healthy mid-evening snacks to satiate their hunger.
