Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras is going to launch India’s first global campus in Zanzibar-Tanzania, East Africa, on October 25, which will become the first IIT ever to be headed by a woman director. To start with, the campus will offer a BS degree in data science and AI and an M Tech degree in the same discipline. The new international campus will be headed by Prof Preeti Aghalayam, dean of the School of Science and Engineering at IIT Madras, who will now take charge of the Zanzibar campus as its director, the institute announced on Monday. The governments of India and Tanzania had last week signed an MoU to this effect.

Applications for the 2023 batch are currently open with 50 seats for the BS course and 20 seats for the M Tech course. “IIT Madras is proud to bring its deep and long-term education and research strengths to East Africa. The campus is planned in similar terms as Madras, with verdant natural surroundings, state-of-the-art classrooms, laboratories, research facilities, and innovation centres. It’s a matter of pride for me to take on this role, as there is significant female representation from Tanzania in this partnership as well,” said Prof Preeti, who teaches chemical engineering and is an alumnus of IIT-M.

The faculty strength will be based on required teaching expertise and the quality assurances of IIT Madras including but not limited to maintaining robust faculty-student ratios. The IIT-M Zanzibar campus is planned to have a structure with degree programmes hosted by schools. The first school is the School of Science and Engineering, which will host both the planned degrees for the 2023-24 academic year. A detailed evolution plan for academic programmes is under development, with inputs from expert members in India and Zanzibar/Tanzania, said Prof Preeti.

IIT Madras director Prof V Kamakoti while announcing the launch of the campus on Monday in a press interaction held in the capital on Monday said, “It is indeed a major milestone in the history of IIT Madras that we are establishing a campus at Zanzibar.”

Zanzibar was picked for setting up a campus for various reasons, he said. “We go to a place where they need us. Africa needed a big campus of this nature. Plus, their school education setup is good, so we will get students with a lot of potential. Initially, we are starting with data science and AI, but in future, we can look at other courses such as Electronic Systems and another course in marine engineering as well,” said Kamakoti.

Meanwhile, IIT Madras is also getting PhD students from Tanzania, who will be trained here and post them back to their home country. “Initially, we will start from a temporary campus in Zanzibar island while we have been given 300 acres plus land to build a permanent campus, which is likely to come up by 2025-end or the first half of 2026,” he added.

The entry to the Zanzibar campus will be through a screening test developed by faculty experts at IIT Madras and an interview, as per the IIT-M senate-approved admission process for international students.