Chennai: The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has recently introduced a School of Sustainability, aimed at offering innovative and interdisciplinary courses on sustainability. This initiative aims to promote research collaboration to address significant global challenges, while also serving as a platform for organizing events and showcasing cutting-edge technologies that can contribute to both practical implementation and policy-making in the field of sustainability. It will bring together faculty members from across departments and research centers of the Institute.
IIT Madras inaugurated the school on October 7, 2023. The event was attended by Jayant Sinha, Member of Parliament and Chairperson, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, Prof. Kala Vairavamoorthy, Executive Director, International Water Association, Prof V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, Prof Ashwin Mahalingam, Head, School of Sustainability, IIT Madras, and Prof Rajnish Kumar, Associate Head of the school besides faculty, staff and students.
Addressing the event, Jayant Sinha said, ‘The fact that you have such outstanding faculty who have put together these centres and MoUs with excellent universities such as Technische Universität Dresden (TUD), Germany, and Tel Aviv University, Israel, and that you are putting something together that will be a very important resource and aspect of India’s very own net-zero decarbonization and focus on sustainability. This is going to be a very important institution.’
Prof V Kamakoti, Director of IIT Madras said, ‘Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals – 1 to 17 of the United Nations is a collective responsibility of the entire globe. Through this School, we aspire to bring researchers and industry from different domains to discuss, debate, develop, and deploy solutions targeted towards the SDG. Human capacity building related to sustainability will also be a primary focus of this school.’
