Guided by Service & Engagement
Striving for Excellence & Innovation
Engaging students and staff through
transformative learning and life experiences
About KISS-DU
We’re a unique non-profit-cum-university that proudly provides higher education from PG to PhD, exclusively to indigenous youth, completely free of cost. As the world’s only exclusively indigenous university, we are humbled to have growing worldwide name recognition, in addition to access to state-of-the-art facilities and research and teaching excellence.
We were granted ‘Deemed to be University’ status by the University Grants Commission, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India in 2017, and since then, there has been no looking back. Each academic year is full of achievement and growth for our KISS community. We are proud to have been recognised with a Leadership Award by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, in recognition of our commitment towards “Education For All”. In 2019, we were also the proud recipients of “Best University in Odisha” at the first-ever Odisha Education Awards.
Our students successfully clear numerous competitive examinations such as the UGC NET, and yet others have gained admission to reputed institutes of higher education such as IIT and NIITs. Alongside academics, students benefit from our holistic approach and post stellar national and international sports performances in Rugby, Judo, Cricket, Sprinting and Handball. On the research front, we have recently established four new research chairs to honour and study the lives and contributions of Santha Kabi Bhimabhoi, Utkal Gourav Madhusudan, Utkalmani Pt. Gopabandhu Das, and Shri Biju Patnaik.
What guides us?
As an organisation, we are guided by the compassion and foresight of our Founder, Dr. Achyuta Samanta – a visionary philanthropist and educationist, who established KISS along with our sister concern, the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) in the early 1990s.
Who attends KISS-DU?
As a proud indigenous institute, all our students come from various indigenous tribes from Odisha and surrounding states of India. Our diverse student body represents more than 62 tribes, and is a melting pot of beautifully diverse tribal cultures, heritage and languages. Our faculty and staff come from all walks of life – from rural communities, tribal communities, urban epicenters and cities abroad. Together, at KISS-DU we’re all curious, hungry to learn, and open-minded.