February 17, 2024
IITKGP Alumni have founded a total of 1,332 companies
IITKGP Foundation
The motto of IIT Kharagpur is "Yoga Karmashu Kaushalam" or “Excellence in action is Yoga", essentially implying that doing your work well is (true) yoga. This can be traced to Sri Krishna's discourse with Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. The IITKGP alumni have been doing their “yoga” over the years through entrepreneurship around the world. Indian PM Modi has set a target for the country’s GDP growth to create 1 million entrepreneurs. “Don't just keep your dreams local, make them global” says the Indian PM. Many, including the PM, believe that IITs are the breeding ground for budding entrepreneurs. Addressing the 56th convocation of IIT Bombay, PM Modi called IIT graduates the frontrunners of India's startup ecosystem. In fact, according to recent reports, IIT Kharagpur alumni in India have founded a total of 1,332 companies, 617 of them are funded and 12 are Unicorn. The IITKGP Rajendra Mishra School of Entrepreneurial Engineering (RMSoEE) is at the forefront of these entrepreneurial efforts. Sponsored by RMSoEE, the startup ecosystem is also supported by a student-body run Entrepreneurship Cell formed in 2006 solely with “the purpose of inspiring and guiding start-ups in IIT Kharagpur and to foster an entrepreneurial culture in the campus of IIT Kharagpur.”
Examples of successful IITKGP alumni startups abound around the world; some well known companies from just the recent decade include: Swiggy (Co-Founder: Rahul Jaimini; 2010/B.Tech+M.Tech/CSE), Rubrik Inc. (Founder: Bipul Sinha, 1996/B.Tech/EE); Ofbusiness (Co-Founder: Asish Mohapatra, 2002/B.Tech/ME); SumoLogic (Co-Founder: Kumar Saurabh, 1999/B.Tech/CS); AmberStudent (Co-Founders: Saurabh Goel, 2014/B.Tech/CHE & Madhur Gujar, 2015/B.Tech/ME); Adri AI (Co-Founders: Darshita Chaturvedi, 2017/B.Tech/& Shyam Swaroop, 2017/B.Tech/CivE).