Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani - Dubai (BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus or BPDC) is a private technical research university and a constituent college of Dubai International Academic City. It became the international campus of BITS Pilani in 2000, making it the second campus established (other campuses: Pilani, Goa, Hyderabad). It is the first Indian university to have an overseas campus. The institute is backed by the Aditya Birla Group and is one of the first six institutes to be awarded the Institute of Eminence status in 2018.
BITS Pilani, Dubai offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs in engineering and business management domains under 10 academic departments. It enrolls about 1,400 students every year, mostly from India, UAE, Oman, Qatar and other GCC countries.
History
Inception
The Birla Education Trust was founded in 1929; the intermediate college became a degree college and later offered postgraduate courses. The masters programme in electronics began in 1955.
Reacting to early criticism about the project, contemporary advisor Thomas Drew said:In my judgment to attempt to develop an American institution in India would be like trying to graft apples on a pine tree. We have not been asked to make such an attempt. We were asked to help devise in India an Indian technological school to produce graduates with the know-how to produce knowledge pertinent for India.... In many respects they consider us immature, rude, hypocritical barbarians who in certain respects happened to hit it lucky. To be viable in India an institution must be framed with Indian values in mind.BITS Pilani became a deemed university established under Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956 by notification No. F.12-23/63.U-2 of 18 June 1964.
In 1964, the Birla Colleges of Humanities, Commerce, Engineering, Pharmacy and Science were merged to form the Birla Institute of Technology & Science. The board provided direction in developing a curriculum, selecting equipment, upgrading the library and recruiting (and training) an Indian faculty. To quicken the pace of reform he convinced C. R. Mitra to be the new director of the institute. Mitra advocated a "practice school" internship program as a requirement for faculty and students. The Practice School Program is still a requirement for students in BITS.
According to Robert Kargon and Stuart Leslie:BITS offered an opportunity to build a leading technological university in India responsive to India's goals, to produce practising engineers who will be in a position to graduate and to build industries in India, under Indian conditions. With its emphasis on the Practice School and ties to Indian industry, it helped educate Indian industrialists along with Indian engineers who would remain in India, in contrast to many other engineering colleges in India, most of whose graduates would leave the country after obtaining their basic engineering education. The Ford Foundation Evaluators...proudly noted that the Indian government, despite having given no direct financial support, was looking to BITS to provide a model for future development in education in engineering and science in India.
Multi-campus expansion
Ghanshyam Das Birla, was born on 10 April 1894 at Pilani village, in the Indian state then known as Rajputana, as a member of the Maheshwari Marwari community. Later, Birla inherited the family business and moved to further diversify them into other areas. He became the founding president of Harijan Sevak Sangh founded by Mahatma Gandhi in Delhi in 1932 . Birla was a close associate and a steady supporter of Mahatma Gandhi, whom he met for the first time in 1916. Gandhi stayed at Birla's home in New Delhi during the last four months of his life.
Envisioning infrastructural development in his hometown, Birla founded the Birla Engineering College (rechristened as Birla Institute of Technology and Science in 1964) in Pilani and the Technological Institute of Textile & Sciences in Bhiwani among other educational institutions in 1943. Both colleges have evolved over the years to develop into one of India's best engineering schools. Dr. K.K. Birla, who took over as the Chairman in 1983, realized the need for providing top class higher education facility to greater number of promising students in science and technology.