List of 56 Famous IITians & Reason Why They’re Popular.

Garima Kaushik
9 min readMay 6, 2020

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IITs are the mecca of engineering graduates. Everyone dreams of getting into these excellent institutes.

Apart from giving World class engineers, IITs have also produced some wonderful writers, musicians, comedians, politicians, bureaucrats, policy makers, Civil servants, creators and actors.

While the primary job role for an IIT graduate is considered to be some technical role in an MNC or public sector enterprise, IITian diaspora is spread all over the world working in various sectors.

Here are some IITians who made it big in the fields other than Engineering.

IITians in Entertainment World -

  1. Anurabh Kumar:

Anurabh Kumar is the man behind popular YouTube channel TVF.

Education — IIT Kharagpur

This great IIT alumni started his creative career with Shahrukh Khan’s production house Red Chillies Entertainment. Later, he decided to make webseries and short films on his YouTube channel.

2. Amol Parashar:

Talking about TVF, we can’t forget about its massive hit webseries Tripling, which starred another IITian — Amol Parashar.

Amol Parashar played the character of Chitvan in this series. He is very active in movie industry.

Education — IIT Delhi

Amol studied mechanical engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and later quit his job at ZS Associates to follow his passion in performing arts.

He was part of mainstream movies like Rocket Singh — Salesman of the year, Babloo happy hai, Milli, Traffic etc.

3. Chetan Bhagat

Chetan Bhagat is a popular book writer known for his stories being adapted as movies. ( Three Idiots, 2 States, Kai Po Che, Half Girlfriend, Hello)

His novels are a huge craze among teenagers and love seeking adults.

Education — IIT Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad.

4. Biswa Kalyan Rath

Talking about the emerging comedy scene in India, we must mention Biswa Kalyan Rath who left his lucrative career to try his fate in stand up comedy.

Education — IIT Kharagpur

He was initially known for ‘pretentious movie reviews’, a movie review series along with Kanan Gill. Later, he carved his own path with mathematical and intelligent jokes. To my best belief, he is most popular among science students and technology buffs.

He also created a show for Amazon prime — ’Lakhon me ek’.

5. Biswapati Sarkar

TVF is a hub of creative IITians. Biswapati Sarkar is one of the writers and directors at TVF who was creatively involved with series like Permanent roommate, Bisht Please, The Making Of…, Mr. And Mrs., Hostel Daze etc.

He ia best known for his on screen portrayal of Arnub Goswami. His comic timing is bang on and he is an absolute delight to watch.

Education — IIT Kharagpur.

6. Jitendra Kumar

Jitendra Kumar aka Jitu is one of the famous IITians who have made it big in acting world.

He has recently starred in Shubh Mangal Jyada Savdhan opposite Ayushmann Khurana.

Hailing from a small town from Rajasthan, Jitendra Kumar has made it big in acting field. Although he completed his BTech from IIT Kharagpur, he was destined to land in the bollywood and webseries with his amazing acting skills.

He has portrayed several characters in TVF videos which include 'Tech Conversations With Dad’, 'A Day With' series, TVF Bachelor’s series, The Pitchers , Kota Factory and many others.

8. Vipul Goyal —

Vipul Goyal is another popular face in stand up comedy who carved his career from IIT Bombay to Entertainment Industry.

Vipul Goyal is counted among the top comedy performers in India and also plays the main protagonist in web-series Humorously Yours.

Education- With AIR 165 (Gen) in IIT-JEE 2003. He studied electrical engineering at the IIT Bombay.

He was also part of popular play Love in December.

Other IITians who made it big in the Entertainment Industry are Rahul Ram(IIT Kanpur), Kiran Seth, Bedabrata Pain, Gaurav Taneja(Pilot YouTuber) and Varun Grover (BHU).

IITians turned Politicians & Policy Makers -

Let’s have a rundown through the names of the most successful IITians in Politics and Social work

1. Arvind Kejriwal

Arvind Kejriwal is the current and 7th Chief Minister of Delhi. He is founding member of Aam Aadmi party.

Education — IIT Kharagpur

He was an IRS officer before turning into a social worker and politician. Fun fact, his kids are also IITians.

2. Manohar Parrikar

Late CM(Goa) Manohar Parrikar was one of the people’s leader.

He also served as the defence minister under Modi Government.

Education- IIT Bombay

He was probably the first IIT alumnus to serve as MLA of an Indian state.

3. Nandan Nilkeni

Nandan Nilekani is an Indian entrepreneur, bureaucrat, and politician. He co-founded Infosys.

He is also known as the father of unique identification Aadhar card in India.

Education — IIT Bombay

Nandan Nilekani received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from his alma mater, IIT Bombay, in 1999.

4. Raghuram Rajan

Raghuram Govindarajan is an Indian economist and the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Between 2003 and 2006 he was Chief Economist and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund.

He is primarily known for being most successful RBI governor for single term.

Education — IIT Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad, MIT.

He is currently a professor at Chicago Booth School of Business.

5. Duvvuri Subbarao

Duvvuri Subbarao isn’t an unfamiliar name. I am sure you must have seen his name at least once in life.

Unable to recall?

His name was on the currency notes as he was 22nd RBI GOVERNOR.

Education- IIT Kharagpur

This IITian rose to fame with his exceptional skills in the sector of Economy.

But he has served to India in many other capacities. He was an IAS officer prior to being an economist.

Currently, Mr. Subbarao is based in Singapore.

6. Ajit Singh

The founder of influential political party — Rashtriya Lok Dal, Chaudhary Ajit Singh is another star IITIAN included in our list.

On contrary to most of the Indian politicians, Ajit Singh is well educated and apart from IIT Kharagpur he studied in Illinois University of Technology.

Ajit Singh is son of former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh.

But his claim to fame is because of his own political endeavours. His party is popular in western Uttar Pradesh.

7. Jairam Ramesh

This 66 years old IIT alumni is known for his economic prowess and political understanding.

His father was a Professor of Civil Engineering at IIT Bombay. Hence, IIT came to Jairam Ramesh as a first choice. He graduated from IIT Bombay in 1975 with a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering.

He has a long list of educational degrees from prestigious institutions like MIT. However, he couldn’t complete his doctorate from MIT, he is knowledgeable and experienced.

8. Alok Agarwal

As his Wikipedia page suggests, Alok Verma is a member of Aam Aadmi Party.

He studied at IIT Kanpur. He is prominently known for his participation in Narmada Bachao andolan.

9. Jayant Sinha

An IIT Delhi alumni, Jayant Sinha holds an M.B.A. with Distinction from the Harvard Business School, an M.S. in Energy Management & Policy from the University of Pennsylvania.

He is son of Indian politician Yashwant Sinha.

He is MP from Hazaribagh. Also, he is the Chairperson for Standing Committee on Finance and a member of the Public Accounts Committee for 2019-2020.

8 Awesome IITians ever in Science and Academics :

IITians are known for their technical prowess. However, they’ve proven their skills in Sciences and Academics equally. Here’s some frontrunner IITians who made India proud with their achievements.

  1. K Radhakrishnanm

Indian Space Scientist and former Chairman of ISRO.

Education — IIT Kharagpur (PhD)

2. Pranav Mistry

President and CEO of Samsung STAR Labs

Education — IIT Bombay ( Master s of Design)

3. Ashoke Sen

Indian theoretical physicist.

Education — IIT Kanpur(M.Sc)

4. Shiraz Minwalla

Indian theoretical physicist and string theorist.

Education- IIT Kanpur(M.Sc)

5. Subra Suresh

Indian-American biological engineer.

Education- IIT Madras.

6. B. N. Suresh

Indian aerospace scientist who was awarded Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri both.

Education- IIT Madras.

7. Anjali Joshi

Former Google VP of product management.

Education — IIT Kanpur(Electrical engineering)

8. Veena Sahajwalla

An inventor and Professor of Materials Science in the Faculty of Science at UNSW Australia.

Education — IIT Kanpur.

List of IIT graduates turned entrepreneurs

IIT graduates are considered to be good cut out for business world. Here’s the list of entrepreneur IIT alumni -

Narayan Murthy

Co-founder of Infosys.

Education — IIT Kanpur.

Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal

Founders of Flipkart.

Education — IIt Delhi.

Rohit Bansal

Co founder and former CEO of Snapdeal.

Education — IIT Delhi

Bhavish Agrwal & Ankit Bhati

Founders of Ola cab.

Education — IIT Bombay.

Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah

Founders of Zomato.

Education — IIT Delhi.

Sanjay Sethi

Founder and CEO of Shopsclue.

Education — IIT BHU and Delhi.

Pranay Chulet

Founder of Quickr.

Education — IIT Delhi.

Sankalp Agarwal, Prabhat Gupta & Sanchit Garg

Founders of Travel triangle.

Education — Sanchit, Prabhat and Sankalp, studied computer science from IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Guwahati and IIT-Bombay respectively.

Ambarish Gupta and Pallav Pandey

Founders of Knowlarity.

Education — IIT Kanpur.

Ayush Varshney and Sahil Baghla

Founders of Bluegape

Education — IIT Kanpur.

Nikesh Arora

CEO of Palo Alto Networks, former president of SoftBank group.

Education — IIT BHU

Sundar Pichai

CEO of Alphabet INC and Google.

Education — IIT Kharagpur.

Amit Singhal

Former senior vice president at Google and head of Google search team.

Education — IIT Roorkee

Bharat Desai (Richest IITian)

Co-founder and chairman of Syntel.

Education — IIT Bombay.

Yogesh Chander Deveshwar

Chairman of ITC Limited.

Education — IIT Delhi.

Pramod Maheshwari:

Founder and CEO of Career Point Ltd.

Education — IIT Delhi

Sameer Gehlaut

Founder and chairman of the Indiabulls Group

Education — IIT Delhi.

Famous Godmen hailing from IITs:

IITs have produced some Godmen and spiritual leaders as well. Although, India’s topmost educational institutions generating spritual Guru seems ironic but still here’s a plethora of such IIT alumni-

  • Swami Mukundananda
  • Swami Ramanand aka Dr Ramesh Misra
  • Madhu Pandit Dasa
  • Radheshyam Das
  • Shreesh Jadhav aka Swami Savottamanand
  • Acharya Prashant
  • Khurshid Batliwala and Dinesh ghodke

Although, I tried keeping this list of IITians as error-free as possible, there’s very little information about IIT alumni in public domain. I welcome your comments, compliments and even criticism for improvement of this article. What other ideas can I add to this list that I may have not mentioned? Please share in comments.

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Garima Kaushik

Smart. Strong. Silly. Straight up. Sometimes I forget myself in a book 📓.