A day at the Wonder Campus 

India’s best university IITM opened its first African branch in Zanzibar

Like a UFO from another planet, a branch of one of the best universities in the world landed in rural Zanzibar on the Fumba peninsula – and started teaching straight away. How is it possible? To find out, we spent a day at the brand-new Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras Zanzibar.

I have the choice of three lectures (and please, dear reader, continue despite their titles!). “Deep Learning” by Prof. Tushar Shinde, “Engineering Analytics” by Prof. Manoj Kumar and “Machine Learning for Signal Processing” by Prof. Ritika Jain. Deep learning, an artificial intelligence (AI) course? Sounded like a killer lecture to me and I enthusiastically signed up. Particularly in journalism, there has been a lot of discussion about AI, to some a monster to displace human writers, to others a super-helpful research robot. Only the class wasn’t about that.

Masters of the invisible

My morning starts in a super-neat classroom in a big yellow building with two mock elephants carrying an Indian and a Tanzanian flag, standing in a manicured garden compound. A face-recognition device opens the door. Instantly it becomes obvious: tech rules here. Here, the future coders of AI and the wider technical universe are born; the masters of the invisible in the computer’s belly. AI is a given, not a point of discussion for them. I watch Prof. Shinde, one of the mainly young lecturers, writing maths formulas and algorithms on a smart board. No student was late, all were clinging to his words, murmuring after him like the faithful following a sermon. Some scribble on iPads but most use paper notebooks. “What I write down by hand I remember much better”, one student tells me.

My inevitable failure was imminent: surrounded by 19 to 22-year-olds in all three lectures, I didn’t understand a word, not even what the lectures were about until the faculty professors kindly explained them to me. But I learned a lot about the wonderful university which has so suddenly and unexpectedly landed in Zanzibar. 

For the first batch of 45 students, half of them Tanzanians, half Indians, the top-ranking school presents a springboard of opportunities, and for the Zanzibar economy as well. “We are here to support the local industry”, says Vice-President Dr. Paresh Pattani. “And we are here for the long run”, adds the dean of the new institution, Prof. Preeti Aghalayam, the first woman director within the IITM. 

We walk over to the campus canteen, which, like the rest of the new university, is rehabilitated from a former college. The impeccable restoration took less than three months. Over dal, rice, and chapati, student Saleh A. Saleh, 21, comes straight to the point when I ask him how he came to study here and what he plans to do: “I hope to take the jobs a foreigner would get”, he answers with a big smile. Son of a Stone Town tailor, he graduated from Zanzibar Commercial Secondary School as the island’s best computer student. “Talents like him would drown at a normal university”, says Dr. Pattani, “here we nurture them.”

Generous government 

Why Zanzibar? Dr. Pattani, responsible for institutional development, explains the deal with the government. Education Minister Leila M. Mussa did not hesitate a minute when the Indian tech icon unexpectedly appeared at her doorstep. With 23 branches in India, listed as the country’s top university for the last eight years, and with alumni within the top management of Google and former Twitter, the IITM is unparalleled in the Southern Hemisphere. Mussa’s generous offer: to provide a first-class modern campus and sponsor the first lot of Zanzibari students. “We could have gone everywhere in Africa”, says Prof. Aghalayam, “but that sounded just right”. For the coming year, 100-150 students are expected, and in a few years their number will rise to 2000. A second campus of 225 acres, also in Fumba, has been allocated. The IITM Zanzibar started out with a bachelor’s program in science & AI and a master’s tech program. From October, a new master’s course “Ocean Structures” with particular knowledge in the oil, gas, and maritime sector will be added.

The flute of Lord Krishna

Everybody at the new university is extremely warm and welcoming, the learning environment including a top-notch flat-screen-equipped auditorium is advanced – and the dorms are cozy.  I find Sri, a student from India, sitting on her bed playing flute, not an ordinary flute but a bansuri like Lord Krishna had, she explains. Is she homesick? “Not at all”, she replies. 

Students from India apply here because the IITM acceptance rate at home is below one percent. “We welcome diversity”, says Dr. Pattani. For  22-year-old Shashwatthe, the Tanzanian relocation worked out perfectly: his Indian parents run a business in Dar es Salaam.  

Wanted: leader personalities

“Good marks are one thing, but we expect a rounded personality”, says program chair Ramkrishna Pasumarthy, “applicants with leadership qualities and a sports spirit. If you just stare at your iPhone after 5 pm, you are wrong here.” 

The clock is ticking, I’m expected back in class. Same room, different students. Prof. Ritika Jain talks about “Machine learning for signal processing”. What on earth is that? “These students could become biomedical scientists. The interpretation of signals, for instance from a lung machine, will be their job”, she willingly explains to the stupid reporter. 

Next door, in jeans and a black t-shirt, Prof. Manoj Kumar writes  “neural ordinary differential equations” on the smartboard, the class is holding its breath. I’m saying good-bye. I’m already fully convinced. 

Information: www.iitmz.ac.in

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