CHENNAI: Urging young engineers to use technology as a force for public good, Zanzibar President Hussein Ali Mwinyi on Friday told graduating students of IIT-Madras that history would remember them not for the complexity of their inventions but for the wisdom with which they chose the problems worth solving.
Addressing students at the 63rd convocation, Mwinyi said innovation achieves its highest purpose when it improves human dignity and transforms lives. “Do not merely ask what we can build. Ask whose life this will improve,” he said.
Highlighting education as the cornerstone of Zanzibar’s development vision, Mwinyi said the establishment of IIT-Madras Zanzibar, India’s first international IIT campus, reflected the shared belief that talent exists everywhere even when opportunity does not.
A total of 3,518 degrees, including joint and dual degrees, were awarded to 3,106 graduates during the convocation.
Presenting the director’s report, IIT-Madras director V Kamakoti said IIT-Madras Zanzibar has emerged as a global higher education hub in East Africa.
The campus currently has 130 students, with 51% from Tanzania and the rest from Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Zambia and India. He said the inaugural MTech batch achieved 100% placements. Kamakoti said the campus aims to increase enrolment to 350-500 students by 2027.