Ashok Misra, the director of IIT Bombay, has quit after eight years of holding the post to join a private firm based at Bellevue in Washington called Intellectual Ventures. The US based private firm was founded in 2000. It invests in inventions and is working to build a bank of patents. Mr Ashok Misra was serving his second term at IIT Bombay and another two years to go. He had the choice to continue even after this as professor till the age of 65.

It was on Sunday, July 20 during the alumni meet in New York when Ashok Misra voiced his decision to leave IIT and join Intellectual Ventures. His resignation has been accepted by the Union human resource development ministry. Faculty members at Powai stated that they had absolutely no clue about Mr Misra’s plans. M S Ananth, the director of IIT-Madras, however, revealed that the IIT Bombay director had been ‘toying with the idea of joining the private sector for some time now’.

Just few months back, Ashok Misra was handed the responsibility of mentoring the new IIT in Gujarat and Indore. But he wrote to the human resource development ministry that the Indore project will be taken up only next year. This project now will have to be designated to a new person. The IIT Bombay director is probably the only one to have joined a private firm. The others in the past used their position and reach to opt for plum government postings.