Chennai

Meeting people at IIT Madras

IIT Madras is a 620-acre forest campus between Adyar and Velachery in Chennai, where spotted deer and blackbuck wander past lecture halls and student life runs on river-named hostels, the Centre for Innovation and two January fests, Saarang and Shaastra.

The story of IIT Madras

IIT Madras was set up in 1959 as India's third IIT, through an agreement with West Germany signed in Bonn. Germany supplied equipment, sent around twenty professors for several years and trained Indian faculty, and the first batch of 120 students arrived from across India.

The campus was carved out of wooded land next to Raj Bhavan in what was then the edge of the city. Much of that forest was left standing, which is why the campus today is one of the greenest in any Indian metro, with lakes, deer and blackbuck. Hostels were named after Indian rivers, a convention that continues.

IIT Madras is an Institute of Eminence, runs a large online BS in Data Science and Applications, and in 2023 opened a campus in Zanzibar, Tanzania, the first IIT campus outside India.

What the campus is like socially

Life at IITM is shaped by the forest. You cycle or take the campus bus between hostels and departments under a thick canopy, deer cross the roads, and the Open Air Theatre is the place for concerts, screenings and big gatherings. The campus feels far from the city even though Adyar and Velachery are just outside the gate.

Hostels act like houses, with strong loyalties and year-long inter-hostel competition across sports and culture. Most students also find their people through a club or a fest team: the Centre for Innovation for builders, Saarang and Shaastra for organisers, and a long list of cultural and literary clubs for everyone else.

Traditions every IIT Madras student knows

• Saarang: IITM's cultural fest, held over five days in the second week of January. It began in 1974 to 1975 as Mardi Gras and was renamed Saarang in 1996, after the spotted deer that live on campus.
• Shaastra: The technical fest, held since 2000, with competitions, exhibitions and lectures that draw students from across India.
• Saarang's Classical Night and World Fest: Saarang opens with performances by leading Indian classical artists, and its World Fest brings international acts to the Open Air Theatre.
• Inter-hostel competition: Hostels compete across sports and culture through the year, and the points table is a big part of first-year social life.

Campus lore and insider spots

• Deer and blackbuck: Spotted deer and blackbuck live on campus, and seeing them on the way to class is normal. Saarang itself is named after the deer.
• River-named hostels: All hostels carry Indian river names, from Cauvery and Ganga to Sharavati and Sarayu.
• From Mardi Gras to Saarang: The cultural fest started out with a French carnival name before students chose a more Indian identity in 1996.
• The first overseas IIT: IIT Madras opened a campus in Zanzibar in 2023, making it the first IIT with a campus abroad.
• The Open Air Theatre: OAT hosts Saarang's biggest nights and regular gatherings the rest of the year, and is one of the most loved spots on campus.

How to find your people here

At IIT Madras, a technical club, hackathon team, or the fest organizing crew is the fastest way to meet people outside your own branch.

Fests and societies at IIT Madras

Signature fests

• Saarang
• Shaastra

Notable societies

• Entrepreneurship Cell
• Centre For Innovation (13 clubs)
• Prakriti Wildlife Club
• Avishkar Hyperloop
• Raftar Formula Racing

Societies worth knowing at IIT Madras

• Centre for Innovation: The student innovation lab set up in 2008, home to many technical clubs and team projects in robotics, electronics and more.
• Saarang and Shaastra teams: The organising teams of the two big fests are among the most sought-after roles on campus and work almost like startups.
• Quiz Club: A long-standing quizzing culture with regular campus quizzes and inter-college competitions.
• E-Cell: Runs entrepreneurship events and connects students to IITM's large startup incubation ecosystem.
• The Fifth Estate: The student-run news publication that covers campus life, administration decisions and the wildlife.

Careers, internships and placements

IIT Madras runs a large placement season with recruiters in software, semiconductors, finance, quant trading, consulting and core engineering. Students often say the lab or club you commit to by second year matters as much as branch, since projects and research show up strongly in interviews.

IITM is also one of India's biggest startup and deep-tech ecosystems, with a large incubation cell and research park on campus. Many students and alumni go on to found companies, while others head abroad for research degrees.

Notable alumni

• Kris Gopalakrishnan: Co-founder of Infosys, who completed an MSc in 1977 and an MTech in 1979 at IIT Madras.
• Sridhar Vembu: Founder of Zoho, a 1989 BTech graduate.
• Aravind Srinivas: Co-founder and CEO of Perplexity AI, an IIT Madras graduate of 2017.
• Subra Suresh: Former director of the US National Science Foundation and president of Carnegie Mellon University, a 1977 BTech graduate.
• S. Sowmya: Carnatic vocalist and Sangita Kalanidhi awardee, who earned an MSc at IIT Madras in 1992.

Rivalries and eternal debates

The constant comparison is with IIT Bombay: Saarang against Mood Indigo, Shaastra against Techfest, and Powai's city buzz against Madras's quiet forest. Locally, Chennai debates IITM against NIT Trichy and CEG Guindy. Inside campus, the oldest argument is between core engineering branches and the computer science and data crowd over who does real engineering.

Meeting people at IIT Madras by interest

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

Colleges nearby

IIT Madras sits close to NIFT Chennai, Loyola College Chennai, Anna University CEG, Stella Maris College, and Women's Christian College Chennai, all part of the same Chennai student scene. Cross-college friendships often start at inter-college fests, hackathons, or shared-interest communities rather than in class.

Similar campuses across India

If you are looking beyond your own campus, students at IIT Patna, IIT Roorkee, JNTU Hyderabad, and KJ Somaiya College of Engineering 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 Madras, 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 Madras? 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.

See meeting people in Chennai, events in Chennai, the freshers guide, the Meet People pillar, or read what Zyber is.