IIT Kharagpur has established the “Prithviraj Banerjee and Swati Banerjee Chair Professorship” with an endowment of $ 81,082, received from its eminent and distinguished alumnus, Dr. Prithviraj “Prith” Banerjee (1981/B.Tech./E&ECE/Azad).
In this regards, virtual signing ceremony of Memorandum of Understanding between IIT Kharagpur and Dr Prithviraj Banerjee was arranged on July 02, 2021, where Prof Virendra Kumar Tewari, the Director of IIT Kharagpur and Dr Prith Banerjee, the Chief Technology Officer of ANSYS had signed the MoU in the presence of Prof Amit Patra, the Deputy Director; Prof Jayanta Mukhopadhyay, the Dean Outreach; Prof Surjya Kanta Pal, the Associate Dean of Office of Alumni Affairs and Branding; Prof Anandaroop Bhattacharya, Associate Dean of International Relations and Ranking and Prof Mrityunjoy Chakraborty, the Head of the Department of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering (E&ECE), IIT Kharagpur.
Thanking Dr Prith Banerjee for his avidity of giving back to his alma mater, Prof Virendra Kumar Tewari, “We are highly overwhelmed by his act of generosity. We are grateful and privileged to be blessed by all the donours for the selfless charity, which have created wonders in many ways than one. Being closely associated with Dr Banerjee in the form of this Chair, has been a great achievement for all of us. Dr Banerjee has become the first donor to institute the Chair Professorship in the Department of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering (E&ECE)”.
The Chair Professorship has been established to carry out State-of-the-art teaching, research, and industrial collaboration in the Department of E&ECE. The aim of instituting this chair professorship is to encourage top faculty members to participate in research and industrial collaboration in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Communications Engineering.
Currently, Dr Prith Banerjee is the Chief Technology Officer at ANSYS where he is responsible for leading the evolution of ANSYS’ Technology strategy and champions the company’s next phase of innovation and growth. He also serves as the board member at Cray and CUBIC. He has also joined the Board of Directors of PanIIT USA as a Prominent Alumni. Dr. Banerjee founded AccelChip and BINACHIP in the domain of electronic design automation.
He received his B.Tech degree in Electronics and Electrical Communications Engineering in 1981 (President’s Gold Medallist), and M.S. & Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 1982 and 1984 respectively. He spent more than 20 years in academia as a Professor, Department Chairman, and Dean at the University of Illinois and North Western University, and about 15 years in senior corporate roles as Director of HP Labs, and Chief Technology Officer of ABB, Schneider Electric and Ansys. He is the Fellow of IEEE, ACM, AAAS, and Distinguished Alumnus of IIT Kharagpur as well as University of Illinois.
Dr Banerjee said, “I would like to show my gratitude to my Alma Mater in establishing the Chair Professorship in the E&ECE Department. I am pleased to work with the department in the journey towards excellence through this small donation. I feel that I owe my academic and career success to the finest education I received at IIT Kharagpur, and to the excellent professors I had at IIT KGP, such as Prof S K Lahiri, Prof N B Chakrabarti, Prof G S Sanyal, and many others.”
At the end of the ceremony, on the behalf of the E&ECE Department, Prof Mrityunjoy Chakraborty offered sincere appreciation to Prof Banerjee for his generous contributions towards establishing a unique Chair Professorship in the name of his and his wife which would bring significant opportunities to the department towards new heights.
Media Contact: Prof Surjya Kanta Pal, Professor
Email: adeanaa@adm.iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. no.: +91-3222-282019
Contact: Paramita Dey, Junior Assistant
Email: media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282004
