Dr. Mahesh Panchagnula |"An individual in their professional life gets paid in 2 currencies"| Ep. 22

So we wanted to bring the math that we had learned in fluid dynamics to crowd flow, primarily to understand how stampedes start. An individual in their professional life gets paid in two currencies. On ESPN Cricinfo, we created a set of products called Smart Stats. No US faculty member gets the kind of respect in their ecosystem that an Indian faculty member gets within India. [upbeat music]

Hi, my name is Amrut. We've heard that IIT Madras is the best place to build. [upbeat music] So we've come down to the Sudha and Shankar Innovation Hub. We want to meet some people. These are builders. We want to talk to them about their work, and also ask them: What makes IIT Madras the best place to build? [upbeat music] Hi, welcome to the Best Place to Build podcast. This is your host, Amrut. I'm sitting here with Professor Mahesh Panchagnula. He's one of the most popular professors on campus, and we'll learn today why. Uh, welcome, Professor.

Thank you, Amrut, for having me.

Uh, Professor, welcome to the podcast. I know there's a lot of ground we have to cover. Uh, we have to cover your research interests. Uh, you were a student here at IIT Madras. Uh, you've been a faculty for a while. Uh, there's some work we have to cover about the ACR office, the Incubation Cell, and, uh, there's just a lot, but let's start with what I think is definitely the most unexpected piece of news I've heard from IIT Madras in a long time, which was the admission of the Sports Excellence quota. Uh, what is, uh... I mean, I guess it's popularly called sports quota, but it's the Sports Excellence Program.

Sports Excellence Admissions program.

Admissions program. So can you explain what it is?

Sure. Um, first, thank you for having me, Amrut. I've been a big fan of the last several episodes that you've made with several of our alumni faculty, and it does a wonderful job of bringing out an angle, a view of IIT Madras that I think has been missing for some time. So thank you for stepping in to fill the gap.

Uh, but I'm just a storyteller.

Wonderful. That's exactly, I think, who we, who we need more of around this place. Uh, the Sports Excellence Admissions, um, has been a game changer in many ways. When an institution like IIT Madras lays emphasis on a pursuit that was not hitherto rewarded, you know, in the classical JEE, you know, math, chemistry, physics, sort of a framework, it raises multiple eyebrows. It raises multiple aspirations. So it's one of those things that raise both eyebrows and aspirations, and it's, it's a phenomenal initiative, I think. Uh, formally, we've chosen to admit two students into each of our undergraduate programs, and these two students have to qualify JEE Advanced.

Okay.

So they are, in some sense, not too distant from the rest of their peer students in the class, uh, in the old math, physics, chemistry rubric of evaluation. But their choice of which branch they actually end up in is formally decided by their sports excellence.