IITR Professional Development & Innovation Awards

Welcome to Professional Development & Innovation Awards Site

IIT, Roorkee, Professional Development & Innovation Awards

Breaking News: Program launched for the current year 2025-26!

Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations. - Steve Jobs

Purpose

Our goal is to promote professional excellence and innovation among Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee, students by partnering with IITR faculty on an ongoing basis and providing incentives through cash awards.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has been signed on Jan 9, 2019 between Director, IITR, and the Class of 1983 alumni to achieve the twin goals. Recognizing that IITR has several existing schemes, this MOU is focused specifically on promoting innovation and professional excellence among the undergraduate students.

Our 1983 class contribution is listed among the IITR top batch donations.

Last year's program accomplishments: Innovation Awards Competition 2025

Sponsors & Supporters

Prof. Kamal Kishore Pant, Director

IITR Class of 1983 Alumni

Innovation

Innovation has been recognized as key to engineering and technological excellence for IITR students to be successful in long-term. To incentivize students’ meaningful participation, an annual competition focusing on innovation by undergraduate students will be organized every year. Details of the competition, and specific implementation steps, have been developed.

Professional Development and Mentoring

To facilitate professional development, accomplished alumni from Australia, Canada, India, U.K., U.A.E., U.S.A. have been involved in the program to act as sponsors, mentors and judges for the final awards competition, in partnership with IITR faculty. Special preference is given to the projects focused on environmental sustainability, development of rural areas and under-privileged sections of the society.

Program Details

Under "Professional Development & Innovation Awards" program, cash awards are given every year to the students for

Top Innovation (INR 50K)
Best Woman Innovator (INR 25K) added in 2021 to promote women's participation
Judge's Choice (INR 25K)

Open competition is organized every year to select the top teams. Top awards are given away at the time of Annual Convocation.

Scheme was expanded to cover Pre-final year students starting year 2024-25!!!

For program details, please visit IITR website for Senate Committee for Scholarship and Prizes.

Pledge 1% of Your Income to IITR: Promote Innovation

Under "Pledge 1% of Your Income to IITR" initiative, several alumni have pledged to continue donations every year in future too. This has added to the initial corpus built by the alumni.

To get involved in this program or to contribute/donate, please reach out to Team.

Click here to see full list of IITR alumni who have supported and contributed/donated to promote innovation.

Execution Responsibilities

Under the signed MOU, a core team consisting of IITR and alumni representatives is guiding the execution of the program.

For program execution, IITR is currently represented by:

Prof. Rahul Dev Garg, Dean of Resources & Alumni Affairs (DORA), IITR
Prof. Yogesh Vijay Hote, Chairman, Senate Committee on Scholarships & Prizes (SCSP), IITR

Following IITR Class of 1983 alumni are supporting in the program execution:

Dr. Vivek Varma, CEO, Integrated Analytic Solutions, Chicago (Program Coordinator)
Mr. Atul Srivastava, Principal, Intueor Consulting, Sacramento
Prof. Hari B. Srivastava, IITD, Ex-Director General, DRDO, New Delhi
Mr. Shailendra Sharma, Ex-Director General, CPWD, New Delhi
Prof. Manjit Yadav, Head of Marketing, Texas A&M University, College Station
Prof. Ajay Pandey, Finance and Accounting, IIM, Ahmedabad
Mr. Anil Joshi, CEO (Retd), GSPC LNG Ltd, Ahmedabad
Mr. Anand Prakash, CEO, Farm for Full Potential, NOIDA
Dr. Mukesh Bisaria, Global Product & Innovation Leader, Toronto