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