Solutions to global challenges are emerging from IITs: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla

2 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Jun 21, 2026 02:19 PM IST

Om Birla was speaking at an event organised at IIT-Delhi by Pan IIT Alumni India, a body representing over 500,000 IIT alumni. (File Photo: Facebook@OmBirla)

Once focused only on the engineering sector, now solutions to all of the country’s and world’s challenges are emerging from IITs, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said on Saturday.

Birla was speaking at an event organised at IIT-Delhi by Pan IIT Alumni India, a body representing over 500,000 IIT alumni. The event marked 75 years of the IIT ecosystem, and involved the launch of a publication – ‘IIT: The Story of India’s Most Prestigious Educational Ecosystem’ – written by Prabhat Kumar, chairman, Pan IIT Alumni India.

“We have established the excellence of the IITs in the world. When I go to different countries, they talk of the IITs…other countries believe that in their country also institutions like the IITs for research, science, innovation, and technology should be set up…We are proud that there is no institution in the world that can compete with our IITs’ quality, innovation, and research,” Birla said.

“There are countries that are more developed than ours. But our youth and their thinking and capacity for innovation builds institutions. All of you have come from that hard work,” Birla said, addressing an audience including IIT alumni, academicians, and policymakers.

“Competition in the world has increased. But even then, our IITs are doing the best work in dealing with challenges…not only the country’s challenges, but the challenges facing humanity in the present and the future. India is becoming the centre of the solutions to all this. So, the world is looking towards us…the solutions to global challenges will come from the IITs,” Birla said.

Pointing out that the country looks towards the IITs to address every challenge including those related to COVID-19 pandemic, and Artificial Intelligence (AI), Birla said, “There was a time when IITians were only working in the engineering sector. Today, solutions to all of the country’s and world’s challenges are emerging from IITs…which are connected with human life, and which are connected to the country’s progress…to address challenges of farmers and the common man…IITians are working in different sectors.”