Prof Debabrata Das appointed as new Director of IIITB

Bengaluru: The International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT Bangalore) on Thursday announced that Professor Debabrata Das has been appointed as its Director, effective June 30, 2021, a role currently held by Professor S Sadagopan.

With 21 years of professional experience, Prof Das joined IIITB as an Assistant Professor in 2002 and grew to the role of Professor. He has also acquired administrative experience while working as the Dean of Academics and R&D from 2014 to 2017.

In this new role, he will work closely with IIITBs faculty, Board of Directors and the “larger set of stakeholders” to further the Institutes teaching and research, facilitate student and faculty exchange, as well as enable delivery of innovations in partnership with Indias leading organisations, it said in a statement.

“This is a challenging time with respect to the fast- changing technology in the areas of computing, electronics and communication, as well as societal needs. I am looking forward to working closely with the students, my colleagues in the Institute, peers, industry, government, and industry bodies,: said Professor Das.

During his tenure with IIITB as Director, Professor Sadagopan has led several key initiatives includingthe setting up of MIIIT (Myanmar International Institute of Information Technology, Mandalay) where IIITB built up from scratch, a full-fledged institute on the lines of IIIT in Bengaluru, sponsored by Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India and the Government of Myanmar.

He has also led a transformational project, a digital identity project – Modular Open Source Identity Platform (MOSIP), which will be an open source version of the equivalent of Aadhaar. This will be initially going live in Morocco and the Philippines, with many other countries expected to follow soon, the statement added.