An alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology (Madras) has donated US$ 5 million (nearly INR 41 crore) to fund research at the institute.

V Prem Watsa, who is the promoter of Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited, a leading Canadian financial company and graduated from IIT Madras in 1971 with a First-Class degree in Chemical Engineering made the donation.

The donation was made towards IIT Madras’ Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre which has developed a World-class high-throughput histology pipeline that processes whole human brains into high-resolution digital image volumes.

Watsa was presented with the Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1999.

Launched in March 2022, the centre is working to power an ambitious Global Project to image the human brain at the cellular levels by generating unprecedented human brain data, scientific output and technology tools.

Watsa said, “The quality of work and the team’s commitment at IIT M’s Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre is truly outstanding. The technology platform they have developed that generates high-resolution image volumes of human brains is unique. It has a far reaching impact in advancing our knowledge of human brains, developing insights that will lead to solutions for highly challenging brain diseases.”

He added, “To handle this enormous complexity, they are working in close collaboration with brain researchers in various fields around the world. Fairfax is pleased to support this cutting-edge R&D work and we wish them the very best to reach greater heights.”

The donation was facilitated by the Canadian Friends of IIT-Madras (CFIITM), a Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) registered charity that seeks to advance the cause of IIT-Madras among its Canadian alumni and Canadian society at large.

“We were very happy that this donation for cutting-edge work at IIT Madras will also further the cause of Indo-Canadian cooperation,” said Prof. Marthi Venkatesh Mannar and Prof. Partha Mohanram, Directors of CFIITM.

Also read: IIT Madras first to introduce sports quota, adds 2 seats per UG course