The true measure of a university's greatness can be found in the achievements of its alumni. The International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad is known to develop creative, caring and competent leaders of character and excellence. The distinguished accomplishments of IIIT Hyderabad's alumni across various fields are a testament to the institute's commitment to fostering innovation, integrity, and a drive for societal impact.
Alumnus of the 2003 batch, Karandeep Anand graduated with a B.Tech (Hons) in CSE from IIIT Hyderabad. Karandeep Anand is the Chief Executive Officer of Character.AI, the leading AI entertainment platform with 20 million monthly active users worldwide. A board advisor to the company, Anand was appointed as CEO to guide Character.AI through its next phase of growth. As CEO, Anand is responsible for shaping the company’s long-term strategy, expanding into new modalities like video generation, identifying monetization opportunities, and unlocking new business partnerships to expand the possibilities for our users to connect, explore, and create.
Previously, Anand served as the President and Chief Product Officer of Brex, the corporate card and spend management platform for startups and enterprises. During his tenure, he was instrumental in the development and launch of Brex’s flagship AI product, Brex Assistant, as well as the introduction of Empower, Brex’s spend management platform for modern companies from startups to enterprises.
Before Brex, Anand held several leadership roles at Meta, ultimately serving as the Vice President and Head of Business Products. During his tenure, Anand led the Business Products Group, serving over 200 million businesses worldwide and connecting with 3 billion people through Ads, Business Messaging, Workplace, and Small Business products across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Before joining Meta, Anand spent 15 years at Microsoft, where he led and expanded the Product Management team and shaped the strategy for Microsoft’s Azure Cloud and Developer platform initiatives.
Know more about him at - https://www.linkedin.com/in/karandeep/
Alumnus of the batch of 2008, Pramod Nair graduated with a B.Tech (Hons) in CSE from IIIT Hyderabad. Pramod Nair is the Co-founder and CTPO of LoadShare, India’s largest last-mile logistics technology platform. As a serial entrepreneur, he has built four startups over 15 years, with multiple successful exits across bootstrapped, seed-funded, accelerator-backed, and venture-funded companies, raising over US$50 million in funding.
Across edtech, e-commerce, mobile, fintech, logistics, and SaaS-enabled marketplaces, Pramod has built products and teams at the intersection of product, engineering, and business. His work spans P2P, B2B, B2C, and C2C models and includes three consumer applications that have each crossed one million downloads: LoadShare Rider, Shopo, and TransportBook.
Since co-founding LoadShare in 2017, Pramod has helped build India’s largest two-sided logistics marketplace, connecting brands with the riders and fleets that move their goods. The platform serves e-commerce, quick commerce, food delivery, and mobility, powering millions of shipments a day through a network of over 50,000 active riders.
Pramod also built TransportBook, India’s largest transport-management app, supporting small truck owners and transporters. He has been closely involved with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) from its inception. LoadShare was ONDC’s first logistics-network participant and executed the platform’s first real-world delivery, contributing to the foundations of India’s open digital-commerce infrastructure.
Before LoadShare, Pramod founded LearnSocial in 2012, credited as the world’s first hybrid-learning platform; it was acquired within seven months of launch. The same year, he founded MartMobi, a mobile-commerce platform serving businesses across 24 countries and the first Indian startup selected for the TechStars accelerator in the United States. MartMobi was acquired by Snapdeal in 2015. At Snapdeal, Pramod co-founded and led the technology team for Shopo, scaling it into India’s largest C2C-commerce platform. He subsequently served as Associate Vice President of Technology at Freecharge.
He worked as a Research Assistant at CVIT for five semesters and co-authored international publications on multilingual information retrieval and search, including a publication with Dr. Raj Reddy. He began his career at D. E. Shaw & Co. (2008–2011), building the firm's first enterprise data warehouse and its investor reporting platform.
His work has been recognised through BusinessWorld’s 40 Under 40, the Aegis Graham Bell Award for Innovation in Transport Tech (2022), NASSCOM Emerge 50, and YourStory Tech30. He remains closely connected to IIIT Hyderabad, having returned as guest faculty in 2014 to teach a full-semester course, spoken at its 2015 Convocation, participated in its 25th anniversary alumni panel, and continued to mentor founders and students.
Know more about him at - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pramodpnair/
Alumnus of the batch of 2010, Siva Reddy graduated with a Dual Degree in CSE from IIIT Hyderabad. Siva Reddy is an Associate Professor in the School of Computer Science and the Department of Linguistics at McGill University, a Canada CIFAR AI Chair, a core faculty member at Mila, and a Research Scientist at ServiceNow Research. He co-leads the McGill NLP Group. His research spans language representation learning, intelligent language agents for complex tasks, AI safety and alignment, and multimodal language understanding. He is a recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and the CS-Can | Info-Can Outstanding Early Career Computer Science Researcher Award.
Know more about him at - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sivareddyg/
A vast number of the institute's former students have gained unique
distinction through success in their professions, service to the
university and contribution to their communities. In 2023, IIIT-H
established Alumni Awards in several categories, to recognise
outstanding alumni who have distinguished themselves in their
professional careers, or in service to the institute or society
while also serving as a leader and role model to others. This is the
highest honour bestowed upon a former student of IIIT-H by the
institute.
Check out past alumni award winners: Winners 2023, Winners
2024, Winners 2025
This award recognizes the valuable contributions to their professions or communities, reflecting the institute's legacy of excellence. Their outstanding accomplishments serve as a testament to the values and aspirations of the institute, inspiring future generations to pursue excellence and make a positive impact in their respective fields.
Professional Achievement - Must have a strong history of engagement in their attainment of professional excellence and leadership skills. The recipient attained prominence through their efforts in commerce, industry, technology, agriculture, the arts, education, government, or other worthy endeavours that form a record of impressive accomplishment
Service to Society / Nation - Contribute time and energy to improve the quality of life for others, in the community or in service to the nation. The recipient exhibits a demonstrated commitment to service through their professional (police/ military/ navy/ Airforce/ administrative services in the government) or volunteer efforts.
This award recognises the valuable contributions the alumni make to the institute or the alumni network through their continuous engagement and support of its various activities. It honours their going above and beyond to exemplify the mission and values of the institute and their commitment to the progress of IIIT-H and its alumni network.
Demonstrate a strong engagement, passion and outspoken advocacy for the institute's development or alumni network. The recipient's deeds and actions reflect the importance of their educational training, pride in their alma mater, and loyalty to IIIT-H, as demonstrated through their interest in and support of the university and alumni network.