Preeti Aghalyam, the first woman to become an Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) director said that women were still a minority at the campuses. She said that despite constant efforts to improve the gender ratio on campuses, there was still a long way to go.
While the first IIT was set up at Kharagpur in 1951, it was after seven decades that a woman has been appointed head of the prestigious institute. But for Ms. Aghalayam, director-in-charge of the new IIT in Zanzibar, it is not just about breaking the glass ceiling but also living the “once an IITian, always an IITian” theory.
IIT-Madras, set up in 1959, has become the first IIT in the country to launch an international campus, with the new institute in Zanzibar in Tanzania set to begin its first academic session in October. Ms. Aghalayam has spent the last few months travelling from India to Zanzibar and is busy setting things in motion.
