First foreign IIT campus inaugurated by President of Zanzibar

50% of the first cohort of students at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras’s first global campus in Zanzibar is from India, according to IIT-director V Kamakoti. The campus opened on Monday. Hussein Ali Mwinyi, the president of Zanzibar, officially opened the campus on Monday. It is the first IIT campus located offshore. Director of IIT-M Kamakoti participated electronically at the event.

Historic moment for India

“This is a historic moment as for the first time, an IIT campus is being opened abroad. We are now in rapid internalisation, with international institutes in terms of joint degree programmes, faculty exchange, student exchange, and joint research programmes. Having a campus abroad will bring a much more diverse culture into the IIT system,” the IIT-M director said.

According to Kamakoti, the first semester has already begun on campus with about 50 students, half of whom are from India. Students from Nepal, Tanzania’s mainland, and Zanzibar make up the other half. “Women make up 40% of the admitted students,” he stated.

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Here are the details offered by the course

A four-year Bachelor of Science in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and a two-year Master of Technology in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence are the first two full-time academic programs offered by the campus.

Following the signing of an agreement between the two nations, the union government declared in July of this year that IIT-Madras will open the first IIT campus outside of India in the Tanzanian island city of Zanzibar.

IIT-Madras conducted in-person interviews and an admission exam to determine which students should enroll. For the bachelor’s program, the annual fees will be $12,000, and for the master’s program, they will be $4,000. The faculty members were either hired from India or deputed from IIT Madras. The institute now has a female director-in-charge, Preeti Aghalayam, making it the first campus of an IIT.