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Meeting people at IIT Dharwad

IIT Dharwad is Karnataka's first IIT, and since March 2023 its students have lived on a new 470-acre green campus at Chikkamalligawad, where a small batch, a long list of student clubs and two fests, Parsec and HarSHtAl, make up social life.

The story of IIT Dharwad

The idea of an IIT in Karnataka goes back decades. In 1998 a committee chaired by former ISRO chairman U.R. Rao recommended the Hubballi-Dharwad region, and the institute was finally set up in 2016, with classes starting on 15 July 2016 and IIT Bombay as mentor.

For its first seven years IIT Dharwad ran from a temporary campus at the Water and Land Management Institute in the Belur Industrial Area. Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the permanent campus in February 2019 and inaugurated it on 12 March 2023.

The 470-acre campus, built at a cost of more than Rs 850 crore, has a 5-star GRIHA green rating and is described as the first green and smart IIT in India. The institute now offers eight BTech branches. Its motto, Sa vidya ya vimuktaye, means knowledge is that which liberates.

What the campus is like socially

IIT Dharwad is small, with well under a thousand students, so it is easy to know people across branches and years. The new campus is spacious and green, and Dharwad and Hubballi are close by for food, shopping and train connections to Bengaluru and Goa.

Clubs are the centre of student life, from coding and AI to dance, drama, music and fine arts. Because the institute is young, a lot of what counts as tradition is still being created, and first-years often find themselves helping run events or start new initiatives within their first year.

Traditions every IIT Dharwad student knows

• Parsec: IIT Dharwad's annual technical fest, with competitions, workshops and speaker sessions.
• HarSHtAl: The cultural fest, bringing together music, dance, drama and art from all the cultural clubs.
• Branch change season: After the first year, some students move branches based on academic performance, and the results are one of the most talked-about moments of the year.
• Freshers' mentorship: New students are paired with senior mentors to help them settle in, find clubs and navigate the first semester.

Campus lore and insider spots

• The WALMI years: Early batches studied at the Water and Land Management Institute campus before the move, and they are the institute's founding generation.
• First IIT in Karnataka: Despite Karnataka's tech reputation, the state had no IIT until IIT Dharwad opened in 2016.
• Anime-named coding club: The coding club is called Code Geass, after the anime, and the CodeChef chapter goes by AvadaCodavra.
• Green and smart: The campus was designed for sustainability and earned a 5-star GRIHA rating, which students see every day in its open, green layout.

How to find your people here

At IIT Dharwad, a hobby club, technical society, or the fest organizing crew is the fastest way to meet people outside your own department.

Fests and societies at IIT Dharwad

Signature fests

• Parsec
• HarSHtAl

Notable societies

• Code Geass (coding)
• AI/ML Club
• InGene (motorsports)
• Dramatics Club

Societies worth knowing at IIT Dharwad

• Code Geass and AvadaCodavra: The coding club and the CodeChef campus chapter, for web development, games and competitive programming.
• AI/ML Club: Works on machine learning and deep learning projects aimed at real-world problems.
• InGene: The motorsports club, for students who want to design and build vehicles.
• Dramatics, Dance and Music Clubs: The core of HarSHtAl and campus cultural nights.
• Quiz and Literature Clubs: For trivia lovers, readers and writers who like smaller, regular sessions.
• Open Student Society: A community for students who want to build, share and grow projects together.

Careers, internships and placements

IIT Dharwad runs a central placement process with recruiters from software, electronics and core engineering. Computer science draws the most interest, while the newer branches in engineering physics, chemical, civil and mathematics and computing are still building their placement record.

Students often lean on coding clubs, projects and research with faculty to strengthen their profile, and Bengaluru's tech scene is within reach for internships and networking.

Rivalries and eternal debates

IIT Dharwad is one of the youngest IITs, so its students compare progress with the other 2015 to 2016 IITs like Goa, Palakkad, Tirupati, Jammu and Bhilai. In Karnataka, JEE aspirants weigh it against NIT Surathkal. Being the state's first IIT is a quiet point of pride.

Meeting people at IIT Dharwad by interest

A lot of friendships here form around a shared interest rather than a class or a hostel wing. If you are into coding and hackathons, theatre and dramatics, startups and builders, gaming and esports, and running, those pages cover where that scene actually happens in India and how to find people near you who are into the same thing.

Similar campuses across India

If you are looking beyond your own campus, students at IIT Gandhinagar, IIT Goa, IIT Hyderabad, and IIT Indore share a similar campus culture, and Zyber works the same way at each: showing you verified people nearby who match on interest, intent, or timing.

Zyber on campus

Zyber is built for meeting people nearby in real time, with verified profiles only. At IIT Dharwad, that means showing you people near you who share your interests or your drive, whether or not you overlap on a class or a society.

New to IIT Dharwad? Start here

If you are just starting out, these freshers guides are written for exactly this moment: first week of college checklist, how to choose societies in college, making friends beyond your branch, and hackathons for beginners in india.

the freshers guide, the Meet People pillar, or read what Zyber is.