Chandigarh

Meeting people at IIT Mandi

IIT Mandi sits in the Kamand Valley in Himachal Pradesh, on a 538-acre campus split into a South campus by the Uhl river and a North campus along the Kataula stream, and students regularly call it the most beautiful IIT. Its big fests are Exodia and the Rann-Neeti sports meet.

The story of IIT Mandi

The foundation stone of IIT Mandi was laid on 24 February 2009, still celebrated as Foundation Day. The campus did not exist yet, so the first batch of 97 students began classes at IIT Roorkee on 27 July 2009 before moving to a transit campus in Mandi town.

Prof. Timothy A. Gonsalves, from IIT Madras, became founding director and built the institute from scratch. Construction at Kamand followed, and on 25 April 2015 IIT Mandi became the first of the new IITs to move all its BTech students onto its permanent campus.

Instead of traditional departments, IIT Mandi is organised into schools, including Computing and Electrical Engineering, Biosciences and Bioengineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Management. Its incubator, IIT Mandi Catalyst, opened in May 2016 as Himachal Pradesh's first technology business incubator.

What the campus is like socially

Kamand is a mountain campus, and the setting shapes everything: misty mornings, steep walks between buildings, snow on the peaks in winter and weekend hikes into the hills. Mandi town is a short drive away, but most of student life stays inside the valley.

The small batch size means students get to know each other fast. Clubs under the Student Gymkhana's technical, cultural, literary and sports societies run most evenings, and the build-up to Exodia and Rann-Neeti pulls the whole campus together. Daily life also has its own geography, with jokes about which side of the ridge you live on.

Traditions every IIT Mandi student knows

• Exodia: IIT Mandi's annual techno-cultural fest, started in 2012, with competitions, performances and talks over three days.
• Rann-Neeti: The inter-college sports fest held every September, organised by the Sports Society.
• Foundation Day: Marked every year in honour of the foundation stone laid on 24 February 2009.
• Vivaan: The institute magazine, published every semester by the Literary Society.
• Weekend treks: With the Himalayas on the doorstep, hikes and treks around the Kamand Valley are a regular part of student life.

Campus lore and insider spots

• Two campuses, one valley: South campus sits on the left bank of the Uhl river below Kamand village, while North campus runs along the Kataula Khad, opposite Salgi village.
• Classes at Roorkee: IIT Mandi's very first classes were held at IIT Roorkee, more than 300 km away, before the institute had a home.
• First new IIT on its own campus: IIT Mandi beat every other post-2008 IIT to a fully permanent campus for its BTech students in 2015.
• The most beautiful IIT: The question of whether Mandi is the prettiest IIT shows up on every student forum, and campus snowfall photos usually settle it.

How to find your people here

At IIT Mandi, 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 Mandi

Signature fests

• Exodia
• Rann-Neeti

Notable societies

• Technical Society clubs
• Literary Society (Vivaan magazine)
• IIT Mandi Catalyst incubator

Societies worth knowing at IIT Mandi

• Technical Society: Seven clubs covering programming, robotics, astronomy, design and more, preparing teams for the Inter-IIT Tech Meet.
• Cultural Society: Five clubs spanning music, dance, drama, photography and film, performing at Exodia and campus nights.
• Literary Society: Debating and writing clubs, and the publisher of Vivaan.
• Sports Society: Runs campus sports and the Rann-Neeti fest.
• IIT Mandi Catalyst: The campus incubator, which has supported more than 350 startups and gives student founders a place to start.

Careers, internships and placements

IIT Mandi runs a central placement process with recruiters across software, data, product and core engineering. Computer science and data science draw the most interest, while other branches lean more on core and research roles.

Because the campus is remote, students often lean on strong coding profiles, projects and internships to stand out. Catalyst and the institute's focus on AI and robotics research give interested students a path into startups and research.

Notable alumni

• Nitesh Kumar: Para-badminton player and IIT Mandi graduate, who won gold in men's singles SL3 at the Paris 2024 Paralympics, beating Britain's Daniel Bethell in the final.

Rivalries and eternal debates

IIT Mandi is regularly compared with the other new IITs, especially IIT Ropar in the same region, and JEE forums argue over brand versus campus. Mandi students usually win the scenery argument. At Inter-IIT meets, results against older IITs carry extra bragging rights.

Meeting people at IIT Mandi by interest

A lot of friendships here form around a shared interest rather than a class or a hostel wing. If you are into reading and book clubs, startups and builders, coding and hackathons, 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 Palakkad, IIT Ropar, IIT Tirupati, and IIIT-Delhi 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 Mandi, 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 Mandi? 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 Chandigarh, events in Chandigarh, the freshers guide, the Meet People pillar, or read what Zyber is.