Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh laid the foundation stone for the next generation Plaksha University in Mohali.

Plaksha University, being set up across 50 acres with a capital investment of Rs 2000 crores spread over 15 years, will cater to 1,000 students in Phase 1 and plans to expand to 8,000 students by 2035. The Academic Programme, prepared in partnership with UC Berkeley, will be launched in 2019, as the “Plaksha Tech Leaders Fellowship”. The undergraduate programme will start in 2021.

Being established by 40 technology and business leaders, it is set to pioneer the transformation of technology education in India, with its own Academic Advisory Board of global engineering leaders. The university also aims to start research centres around some big challenges that are relevant to India including urban mobility, sustainability, factories of the future, health and education. The vision is to build a Next Generation University at the intersection of technology, science and humanities to transform the world in the 21st Century.

The university has been co-founded by Ashish Gupta, also the Co-Founder and Trustee of Ashoka University, as well as Tech Mahindra former Executive Vice Chairman Vineet Nayyar. Others involved in the venture include Boston Consulting Group Asia Chairman Neeraj Aggarwal, Genpact Founder Pramod Bhasin, Warburg Pincus Special Limited Partner Dalip Pathak, Jamboree Education MD Vineet Gupta, former Evalueserve COO Ashish Gupta, InfoEdge (naukri.com) Co-Founder and CEO Hitesh Oberoi, Royal Bank of Scotland Human Resources MD Anuranjita Kumar, Singapore based Mission Holdings Chairman Saurabh Mittal, former SVP at Genpact Mohit Thukral, and Nagarro CEO Manas Fuloria. The founders also include Chandigarh based entrepreneurs Pranav Gupta, Karan Gilhotra and RoundGlass CEO Sunny Singh.