Founders of InMobi, NoBroker, Yulu and others commit Rs 100 crore to IIT Kanpur

In 2022, Indigo Airlines co-founder Rakesh Gangwal committed to contributing Rs 100 crore to IIT-Kanpur.

Naveen Tewari, founder of InMobi and Glance, Amit Kumar Agarwal, founder of NoBroker, Amit Gupta, Yulu, and the founders of startups such as Knowlarity and Card91, among others, have together pledged Rs 100 crore to set up the Millennium School of Technology and Society (MSTAS) at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT Kanpur), their alma mater.

MSTAS will be a hub for integrating technology, policy, and societal transformation. It is intended to foster critical thinking, leadership, and global perspective among students.

Their batch of 2000 – known as the Millennium Batch – also includes senior leaders from across companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Intel, BCG, Morgan Stanley, and GIC.

The fresh commitment of Rs 100 crore is the highest-ever by any batch at IIT Kanpur, the institution informed on its social media. Of the total corpus, Rs 30 crore will come just from InMobi’s founder Tewari in his personal capacity.

Beyond the government funding, the IITs, especially the older ones, are increasingly looking at industry support, donations from past students and endowments to accelerate their growth and achieve desired expansion.

IITs in Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai (Madras) have already made sizable progress in garnering corpora from alumni and industries and IIT Kanpur is increasingly focusing on building relationships and harnessing it for their growth too.

In 2022, Indigo Airlines co-founder Rakesh Gangwal committed to contributing Rs 100 crore to IIT-Kanpur, his alma mater, in his personal capacity.