In 1987, the idea of Silicon Institute of Technology germinated in the minds of two young BITS Pilani graduates, Sanjeev Nayak and Laxman Mohanty. Laxman, from rural Odisha, studied hard, getting the national scholarship and going to Ramakrishna Mission and Birla Public Schools. Sanjeev, the son of a medical professor, had Indian middle-class aspirations for a better life. Although from different life contexts, the love for art, photography, and fun brought them together at BITS Pilani.

While at college, they often discussed their dreams of contributing to entrepreneurship in the IT sector of Odisha. Two years after graduating from college in 1985, Laxman, an electrical engineer, and Sanjeev, a civil engineer, quit their promising careers in the USA and government of Odisha to start Oricom Systems Pvt. Ltd. In 1987, Oricom began with a focus on IT services, marketing, and solutions in Odisha.

Over the next decade, the market need and opportunity led to Oricom becoming a leader in non-formal computer education in the state. It offered a wide range of courses in the information technology domain, set up computer labs in schools, and trained teachers.

In 1997, a strategic decision to enter formal technology education led them to establish the Gyana Bharati Charitable & Education Trust (GBCET). In 1998, GBCET formed the Silicon School of Information Technology (SSIT) to offer a Masters in Computer Applications (MCA) program. Ramananda Mishra from the publishing industry, and Nitai Gaur Dhall working in the aviation sector, from Singapore, joined Sanjeev and Laxman to set up a Trust in the non-profit education sector.

In three years, by 2001, the team’s passion to bring rigorous, outstanding, and industry-facing engineering education to young people in eastern India led to the founding of the Silicon Institute of Technology (SIT).

SIT started its first campus, SiliconTech, in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, with four AICTE approved B.Tech. programs.