What do future engineers need? How India's IITs are redefining engineering education

Darling, can you buy a pint of milk,” asked the engineer’s wife. “And if they have eggs, get a dozen.”

The engineer nods and heads out.

Half an hour later, he returns carrying 12 pints of milk.

His wife stares at him in disbelief.

“Why on earth did you buy 12 pints of milk?”

The engineer shrugs.

“Well... they had eggs.”

This is a variation of a popular ‘engineer joke’ in circulation. The punchline rests on a familiar stereotype: most people hear the wife’s instruction and understand the intent. Buy one pint of milk. If eggs are available, buy a dozen eggs.

The engineer interprets it as a conditional statement: milk = 1

if eggs are available:

milk = 12

The result is perfectly logical, entirely consistent with the instruction and completely wrong.

The joke endures because it captures a tension that transcends disciplines. Technical expertise matters. Precision matters. But so do context, judgment, communication and the ability to understand what is really needed. That tension is increasingly shaping the future of engineering education.

The question driving curriculum reform at India’s premier technology institutes is no longer what students should know. It is what they should be able to do.

At IIT Roorkee, Asia’s oldest engineering institute, for instance, the integration of AI-enabled learning tools, virtual laboratories, simulation platforms and digital twins has changed how students engage with coursework and design projects. The institute has adopted an institutional policy on AI that establishes an ethics-first framework for its use across teaching, research, assessment and administration.

“Students today increasingly use simulation platforms, AI-enabled tools, digital twins and virtual laboratories as part of coursework and design projects—learning approaches that were far less prevalent a decade ago,” says Prof Kamal Kishore Pant, director, IIT Roorkee. The faculty, alongside students, industry partners, government agencies and startups, work across quantum technologies, sustainable infrastructure, disaster resilience, advanced materials, health care innovation, clean energy and water resources management.

The numbers behind industry engagement are significant. In a single year, IIT Roorkee handled over 962 consultancy assignments and 254 sponsored research projects. Fifteen new startups were established; more than 50 faculty-led startups continued operating. Collaborations with the NTPC (formerly known as National Thermal Power Corporation), Power Grid Corporation, Bharat Electronics Limited and the Indian Army have created sustained channels between campus and the real world. Incubation and innovation hubs such as TIDES Business Incubator and iHub DivyaSampark support technology commercialisation and entrepreneurship. “Innovation today extends beyond engineering disciplines and increasingly involves students from architecture, management, sciences and interdisciplinary programmes,” says Pant.

At IIT Guwahati, the shift has been equally deliberate. There is an innovation pipeline that begins in the first semester—students work on prototypes, computational models and real-world research challenges before they settle into their disciplines. The goal is not technical competence alone. “We aim to make our graduates capable of creating technology rather than merely understanding it,” says Prof Devendra Jalihal, director, IIT Guwahati.

The mechanisms supporting that ambition are concrete: a research park, technology incubation centre, IP support systems and a technology innovation and development foundation. An underwater exploration technology hub brings together students from electronics, mechanical engineering, robotics, sensors, AI and marine technologies—collaboration that would have been difficult to sustain within traditional departmental silos. The department of design engages students with societal problems through human-centred methodologies from the first year.

Industry is not a destination for graduates here—it is a participant in how they learn. Curriculum in areas such as e-mobility has been developed in consultation with industry leaders. Sponsored research projects, centres of excellence and technology development initiatives on campus expose students to constraints—scalability, manufacturability, sustainability, regulatory requirements—that classrooms alone cannot simulate. “Our goal is to create graduates who do not experience a disconnect between what they learn and what the world demands,” says Jalihal. “When industry becomes structurally integrated into teaching, research and innovation, students develop the ability to move seamlessly from concepts to solutions, from laboratories to deployment, and from ideas to impact.”

What began as a student-driven research event—the Research and Industrial Conclave—has grown into a platform where students, researchers, entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers and industry leaders interact and co-create. Student-led innovation, Jalihal notes, is a defining characteristic of the institute’s culture. “Institutions must prepare students for technologies and industries that may not yet fully exist,” he says. “This requires flexibility, interdisciplinarity, research integration, industry participation, project-based learning, entrepreneurship exposure and continuous curriculum review.”

At IIT Kanpur, too, the reform impulse runs deep. “The question is what students should be able to do when their knowledge is outdated, often within a few years in fast-moving technical fields,” says Prof Manindra Agrawal, director, IIT Kanpur.

The answer is built into the degree itself. A common core curriculum across departments, during the first four semesters, now places greater emphasis on broad, transferable skills. For instance, data literacy is now treated as universal infrastructure rather than a computer science speciality, whether a student studies civil engineering, economics or chemistry. The SCHEME framework—social sciences, communication, humanities, economics, management and environment—sits alongside technical training, premised on the belief that engineers who cannot write clearly, read a social context or understand economic consequence are only partially equipped. Students encounter research early through targeted programmes, long before it becomes a formal requirement. The idea is not to turn every student into a researcher, but to cultivate the habits research demands: curiosity, resilience and comfort with open-ended problems.

The outcomes are already visible. Faculty and student projects at the institute include a textile-based metamaterial cloaking system that makes military assets nearly invisible to radar, a handheld AI-powered soil testing device that analyses parameters in 90 seconds without chemical reagents, and a haptic smartwatch for the visually impaired.

That ecosystem, by the institute’s own count, has generated over 1,390 IPRs, nearly 1,000 patents, and more than 500 startups. In 2024-25 alone, 156 IPRs were filed—the highest in a single year in the institute’s history.

Students, all three directors agree, want more than classroom education and placement. They seek research exposure, entrepreneurship support, international experience and meaningful societal engagement. “A common reflection among IIT Roorkee alumni is that while technical education provides a strong foundation, the most valuable outcomes are the ability to think critically, solve complex problems, collaborate effectively, adapt to change, and continue learning throughout their careers,” says Pant.

“When machines can retrieve and synthesise information instantly, the premium shifts from what students know to what questions they can ask and what they can build with the answers,” says Agrawal.

Five years ago, success was measured by how effectively knowledge was transmitted. “Today,” says Jalihal, “the emphasis is increasingly on how effectively students apply that knowledge.”