Two students of the Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) of Manipal Academy of Higher Education  (MAHE) have been awarded the prestigious Knight-Hennessy Scholarship.

The scholarship has been awarded for pursuing a master’s programme at Stanford University, USA.

The two students are Akshatha Kamath pursuing Computer Science & Engineering and Dhruv Suri pursuing Aeronautical Engineering,

The Knight-Hennessy Scholars programme is a prestigious award that fosters a multidisciplinary, multicultural community of emerging leaders from around the world and guides them to collaborate, innovate, and communicate as they prepare to address the complex challenges faced by society.

Akshatha and Dhruv are the only two students selected from India among the total of 76 students representing 26 countries that have made it to the programme this year.

Akshatha Kamath hails from Udupi and will be pursuing her Master’s degree in Education Data Science at Stanford Graduate School of Education.

She is passionate to develop solutions for personalised learning for diverse learning needs.

She has also developed a platform called ‘SantaNet’ to connect the underprivileged orphans with motivated volunteers.

Akshatha has also developed several medical technologies winning her the MIT COVID-19 Challenge.

She also won the Stanford Health ++ Hackathon at Stanford University, with travel support from the Dr TMA Pai Endowment Chair in Health Informatics, Manipal.

Dhruv Suri is from Delhi and will be pursuing his Master’s degree in energy resources engineering at Stanford School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences.

He aspires to work at the nexus of energy and climate and help vulnerable communities overcome access barriers in India and other developing countries.

Dhruv is a co-founder of Candela Energy, the last mile distribution organisation providing rural villages access to life-improving products and has been awarded by ETH student project house in Switzerland and EarthTech in Australia.

Dr HS Ballal, Pro-Chancellor, MAHE, applauded Akshatha Kamath and Dhruv Suri on being awarded the prestigious Knight-Hennessy Scholarship.

“The scholarship is a recognition of the exceptional talent and innovative approach of Akshatha and Dhruv," he said.

"It is indeed a great moment of celebration for MAHE that its students have repeatedly proved to be among the best in the world," said MAHE VC Lt Gen (Dr) MD   Venkatesh.

Dr D Srikanth Rao, Director MIT, MAHE, expressed happiness on the achievement of MIT students.

"The students have made MIT proud and hope that they will continue to contribute in solving the problems faced by our society and emerge as future leaders," said Dr D Srikanth Rao, Director MIT, MAHE.