M. S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology

Sneha Choudhury
Where Wisdom Begins by Will

M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology through their 50+ years of constant endeavor promoting education and reaping fruits of labor has set new goals for itself and is headed with the same determination it had in its inception.

Scholarships are provided to meritorious students all over the globe to bring a sustainable change in students of BPL families through various government and non-governmental entities. This story is not about a nongovernmental organization or new government schemes that have been introduced but about an alumni association that voluntarily took the responsibility to handhold the underprivileged students and facilitates them with food and education on their own expense. M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology, a private engineering college which came into existence in the southern region of the country in 1962 takes pride in having such an alumni association exhibiting the very essence of humanity.

"Students are given every opportunity and through their hard work and constant effort they have been successful in changing the course of lives," says Tallam Venkatesh, President of Alumni Association, MSRIT and CEO, PTL Bangalore and alumni (Batch - 1963). The students are encouraged to join the institute for higher education without worrying about their travel, food and any other related expenses which might be a hindrance towards their education.

With a vision to evolve MSRIT to an autonomous institution of international repute by imparting quality technical education, Late Dr. M.S Ramaiah an industrialist and philanthropist founded M.S Ramaiah Institute of Technology. Having started with only two subjects, the institute currently houses 12 different verticals in engineering studies and offers architecture and management degrees followed by doctoral degree on the same imparting education to 5800 and 800 undergraduate and post graduate students respectively.

"When I joined MSRIT, the institute was in a nascent stage but the transformation is beyond my imagination," shares Mr. Venkatesh. Speaking of the time when he was in the campus, Venkatesh recollects having known the founder as the backbone of the institute, managing the institute all by himself. Knowing all the students in person showed his down to earth nature which was an essence of MSRIT as a family.

Even after the founder's demise, the institute continued series of changes adding more to its glory. Dr. NVR Naidu, Principal, MSRIT has witnessed these changes since 1983 and being a part of its evolution along with his professional journey from a lecturer to the principal, now recollects the essential ingredients that the institute has incorporated to the flavor in educating minds. He points out that an institution needs discipline and then comes the most important pillars of strength for any education institute - 'Management', 'Faculty', 'Infrastructure' and 'Students'. MSRIT has been able to harness it, earning the reputation of being one of the most important institutes. The institute has instilled these four pillars with tremendous dedication which have borne fruits through five decades which allowed it to grow into a tree of learning.

Among the four pillars, he attributes the management as magnanimous and supportive to provide all the necessary facilities to germinate the seed of quality education by incorporating new things all the time. The institute is headed by Dr.M.R.Jayaram, Chairman and son of Late Dr. M.S.Ramaiah, handling the autonomy since 2007 with a governing council which includes two principals of reputed institutes, bureaucrats from Karnataka State and Central government and a member from VTU. The management has been playing a key role in all the endeavors of MSRIT and nurtures a conducive learning environment through improvement and customizing quality in all their pursuits.

Acknowledging the strength of the faculty members, who enlighten the mind of students keeping the vision of M.S Ramaiah alive, the students reciprocate the same love and respect to them as a 'Guru' was regarded in ancient days. "MSRIT has the best of mentors who are talented and skilled in their own grounds and root the same in the students, considering them as one of the pillars of MSRIT's success throughout," adds Dr. Naidu. With faculty - student ratio of 1: 15 one to one communication has honed the students tremendously making MSRIT achieve excellent academic results progressively.

M.S Ramaiah Institute of Technology through their 50+ years of constant endeavor promoting education and reaping fruits of labor has set new goals for itself and is headed with the same determination it had in its inception. In recent times, the institute has earned a name for itself through their interdisciplinary research activities and guiding students towards innovation and scientific exploration. These two elements are bound together through numerous research and consultancy projects with industrial collaborations playing the role of catalysts. The institute already holds established centers of excellences and industry recognition with Autodesk, Cognizant, Schneider Electric and has Karnataka's first IBM centre established in 2009. These collaborations are aimed with curriculum development promoting skills of faculty programs. Industry relevant courses such as 'advanced industrial automation and media controls', 'energy management' and diploma in power plant engineering is the active student-industry benefitting courses run by Schneider Electric and JSW respectively.

The newest in the academic alliances is 'Boeing', which is intended to collaborate for curriculum design in mechanical engineering. The American organization will set up a research lab in the campus of MSRIT for the cause and more of such ventures. Similar centers are on line with Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpagam; GE and Philips. Along with the above infrastructure, MSRIT has state of the art laboratories, Individual computing facility to all faculty members, Campus-wide networking connections making the third pillar equally commendable.

The institute is currently working on the curriculum changes and looks forward to take it to the next level. Incorporating an outcome based learning which includes intensive self study component, mini projects, internships and add-on courses. MSRIT has introduced Learning Management System through an open summer breaks for students promoting from 4th to 5th and 6th to 7th semester respectively. MSRIT plans to have a research and development centre for interdisciplinary subjects at the institution level. This would be one of a kind allowing different departments such as mechanical, electrical, electronic engineering to combine for new innovations and projects.

Over the years, the institute has honed a number of students into notable personalities. S Jindal � MD of JSW Steel, Dr. S.C Sharma � former VC of Tumkur University, Jasbir Singh- Director of GMW, Adithya Srinivasan having nominated in the 57th Grammy Awards are some whales in the ocean of MSRIT proving the significance of the fourth and the prime pillar-Students. Not only the alumni but students while the course work continues have proved heading towards their professional careers through innovations and active participation bringing laurels to MSRIT. In 2015, EDHITHA, a 14 member team from MSRIT has clinched 1st prize at the Student Unmanned Air Systems (SUAS) among 39 international teams creating a history of being the first Indian team to do so. Occurring prior to this event was a Platform independent, secure and optimized identity service led by a four member team under UIDAI at FINO Pay tech in 2014, the service is used to simplify and enhance security in institutions such as banks, hospitals, hotels and insurance companies. However, to be able to acquire the cream of thousands of students applying for admissions, Dr. Naidu boasts of the institute's privilege to have these hard working intellectuals which further add to greatness of MSRIT.

Focusing on the need for entrepreneurs and the changing industrial scenario, Dr. Naidu, explains, "As we look back and see the successful careers of our alumni, we have taken note of only 2 percent entrepreneurs out of the 40000 students in the past five decades. So we plan to motivate more of entrepreneurial ventures and increase the rate upto 4 percent in the next five years." Since most of the students are far more capable than seeking a routine job, yet the placement cell serves their purpose whenever needed and hardly spoon feeds students with placements. However, MSRIT has been the traditional recruitment destination for many organizations and top notch organization such as Adobe, Amazon, JP Morgan, Oracle, Google and many more visit the campus every year to take the cr�me de la cr�me.

MSRIT being a self financing institution affiliated to Visvesvaraya Technological University, established under the Gokula Education Foundation (GEF) which runs along 28 other institutes offering various educational verticals has become an important name in the southern region of the country. As days pass by, numerous institutes may rise up but the amount of enthusiasm added by MSRIT in achieving a global rank is increasing in a lightning speed which would ultimately reap new standards of higher education worldwide.

Dr. NVR Naidu, Principal

He graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Sri Venkateswara University and pursued M.Tech in Industrial Engineering in the year 1982 and obtained his PhD from the same university. Dr. Naidu has been serving the teaching profession with a great devotion for last 33 years. He started his career in 1983 as a lecturer and is the Principal in the prestigious M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology. Dr. Naidu is a recipient of a number of awards such as Dr J Mahajan Award for the year 2008-09 awarded by Indian Institution of Industrial Engineering, Prof. B.G. Raghavendra Memorial Award by ORSI, Kolkata for his outstanding contribution in the field of education and research.

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