President Ram Nath Kovind launched the ‘IIT Delhi Endowment Fund’ at Rashtrapati Bhavan recently, for which an initial commitment of Rs 250 crore was made by founders-alumni, including Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal of Flipkart, Sandeep Singhal and Kavita Iyer, co-founder of WestBridge Capital and Sequoia Capital India, Gaurav Kushwaha, Founder & CEO, BlueStone, and others.
The endowment model aims to achieve a target corpus of USD 1 billion over a period of seven years. This first-of-its-kind fund in India will work towards the development of the University, nurturing innovation, and keeping alive the entrepreneurial spirit among the youth of India, also in the form of scholarships.
Speaking on the occasion, the President said that endowments globally have become integral to the financial health of educational institutions over time. While we are still far from the size and importance of endowment funds of Institutions such as Harvard, Yale or Columbia, it is the right first step in this direction. By giving through endowments, alumni are not just giving to their institution but they are also supporting and nurturing future generations of learners.
Over the past fifteen years, IIT Delhi alumni have founded the highest number of successful startup ventures in India and have cumulatively raised capital of USD 14 billion, almost double the amount of capital raised by the next best. Today, all IITians put together are the fourth-largest producers of unicorn start-ups in the world, after Stanford, Harvard and University of California, with IIT Delhi alumni leading the pack creating 14 out of 24 Indian unicorns.
Some of the contributors who are also part of this endowment fund have created multi-billion enterprises with great success and have now come together to support their alma mater to strengthen its legacy.
The earnings from the fund will be utilized under the guidance of a Governing Board of Advisors consisting primarily of alumni and the IIT Delhi administration (Director and Dean, Alumni Affairs).
The fund will have a transparent structure and corporate governance model that will work towards building a relationship of trust and credibility with its alumni through better communication, professionally managed team structure and periodic reporting.
Around the Thanksgiving and Christmas donation season, IIT Delhi will also be launching the ‘Each One Teach One’ scheme to support the education of one student per year costing up to 10,000 USD, which will get added to the IIT Delhi Endowment Fund.
