IIT Kanpur (Kanpur)

 university, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), academic institution

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IIT Kanpur was established by an act of Parliament in 1959. The institute was started in December 1959 in a room in the Canteen Building of the Harcourt Butler Technological Institute at Agricultural Gardens in Kanpur. In 1963, the Institute moved to its present location, on the historic Grand Trunk Road near the village of Kalyanpur in Kanpur district. During the first ten years of its existence, IIT Kanpur benefited from the Kanpur Indo-American Programme, where a consortium of 9 US universities namely M.I.T, University of California Berkeley, California Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Carnegie Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, Ohio State University, Case Institute Of Technology and Purdue University helped set up the research laboratories and academic programmes. The first Director of the Institute was Dr. P. K. Kelkar (after whom the Central Library was renamed in 2003).

Under the guidance of eminent economist John Kenneth Galbraith, IIT Kanpur was the first institute in India to start Computer Science education. The earliest computer courses were started at IIT Kanpur in August 1963 on an IBM 1620 system, a novelty then even in many North American and European universities. Gradually, the Institute drew upon some of the brightest young Indians in Computer Science to serve on its faculty and initiated an independent academic program in 1971, leading to M. Tech. and Ph.D. degrees.