A Promise Kept: Four Years of Our IIT Delhi Endowment

This month, our endowment at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi turns four. It feels like the right moment to reflect on how it began and what it has become.

Deepali and I both recently turned fifty, and one of the things we decided is to be more intentional about giving back. Growing up in India, we saw firsthand how transformative education can be. We both came from modest, middle-class families. There were no shortcuts, only the belief that hard work, when met with opportunity, could change the trajectory of a life. Scholarships and fellowships did not just fund our education; they opened doors to lives we could once only imagine.

The Amit & Deepali Sinha Foundation was created out of deep gratitude for the systems and people who believed in us early on. Our mission is to pay that forward, and our very first initiative, in 2022, was to establish an endowment at IIT Delhi with a simple aim: to expand access to a world-class education for exceptional students, regardless of financial background.

How it works

Each year, 20 incoming IIT Delhi students are selected on merit and financial need to receive full support from the endowment, which covers all education expenses for their four-year undergraduate program. Every academic year we add:

• 5 full-ride fellowships for the top students by All India Rank (AIR), with at least one reserved for the highest-ranking female candidate.
• 15 scholarships for high-achieving students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

The design goal was to support up to 80 active students at IIT Delhi at any given time, in perpetuity.

Fully realized

Four years on, I am delighted to share that the endowment is now fully operational across all four undergraduate years and actively supports 80 students, from the Classes of 2022 through 2025.

See the Sinha Foundation Fellows & Scholars

Congratulations to every Sinha Foundation fellow and scholar. We are honored to support your journeys, and we cannot wait to see the impact you will create in the years ahead.