IIT Gandhinagar confers 4 alumni with Young Alumni Excellence Awards 2023

NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar has honoured four of its alumni with the Young Alumni Excellence Awards 2023 for achieving excellence and success in their careers in academia and entrepreneurship.

These four students will receive the awards during the annual alumni meet - ‘Homecoming’ scheduled for December 2023:

• Aishwarya Agrawal (BTech in Electrical Engineering, Class of 2014), assistant professor, University of Montreal, for outstanding academic achievement
• Silky Agrawal (MTech in Civil Engineering, Class of 2015) founder, GeoCarte Radar Technology, for outstanding entrepreneurship
• Saurya Prakash (BTech in Electrical Engineering, Class of 2013), co-founder and CEO, Recko, for outstanding entrepreneurship
• Prashant Borde (BTech in Electrical Engineering, Class of 2012), co-founder and CTO, Recko, for outstanding entrepreneurship

Aishwarya Agrawal, who graduated from the institute in electrical engineering with a minor in computer science and engineering in 2014, went on to pursue a PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is currently working as an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research at the University of Montreal. Aishwarya is also a Canada CIFAR AI Chair and a core academic member of Mila -- Quebec AI Institute. She also serves as a Research Scientist at DeepMind.

Silky Agrawal founded GeoCarte Radar Technology, incubated at IITGN. Today, GeoCarte Radar Technology is a successful startup providing non-destructive geophysical exploration services to various government and corporate organisations.

Sinha has worked with companies like Flipkart and PhonePe and also co-founded Townrush, a business-to-business logistics service provider that was acquired by Grofers in 6 months.

Borde co-founded GridAnts, IITGN’s first startup, in 2012 with his friends, which was acquired by Myntra within four years. He then also worked at Jio for a year. In 2018, Saurya and Prashant co-founded Recko, a FinTech startup headquartered in Bengaluru. They raised 6 million dollars in initial funding only, and after four years, Recko was acquired by Stripe in 2021. Both of them now serve in leadership positions at Stripe as product lead and engineering leader, respectively.

Congratulating the awardees, professor Rajat Moona, director, IITGN, said, “It is a matter of great pride for an Institute when its alumni spread across the globe make waves in their respective fields at a young age. And through these awards, we recognise their achievements, honour their commitment and perseverance to make a mark globally, as well as encourage them to take up more challenging and impactful roles in their lives and careers. I congratulate all of them, and I am sure they are going to be the next generation of technology leaders.”