Meet with Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthy - Director IIT Madras in Hyderabad

Date: Feb 25 2012

We had a small gathering with Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthy, Director, IIT Madras.("The star of the evening" - as quoted by Prof. Nagarajan )

(Around 40 of them turned up to greet the new Director in his first official visit to Hyderabad)

(Spotlight: An alumni from 1959-1964 (first batch of IITM) exchanges greetings with a graduate from 2009 batch)

Here are some of the highlights from the gathering:

• Prof. Nagarajan set off the event by letting the alumni know how the alumni associations are now working more effectively through various social mediums like fb, twitter, website, etc. (Around 20000 out of 38000 IITM alumni are now some somehow connected with the IITMAA & OAA) Most imp. note: Linkedin group of IITM is most active with 8000+ members and with almost daily news updates from the campus.
• Prof: Are you receiving monthly IITMAA newsletters? > Many "ayes" from the crowd. Next, Prof: Are you receiving too many mails? > Many smiles went up.
• Prof. SatyaNarayana highlighted how IITM is trying to cut the landscape foot-print by scaling up vertically. (Widely spread staff quarters will vanish and few buildings with 48+ & 90+ 3BHK apartments will serve that purpose. Same goes for hostels, adding floors in existing ones instead of increasing the number of hostels. How hostels are being made "monkey proof" and yet the monkeys continue to entertain themselves :P ? )
• Prof. David Koilpillai (who got to taste Hyderabad's traffic before coming) was in all smiles to declare we won the Inter IIT (yet again!) and the Hockey stadium now has Flood lights!
• The "Star of the evening" initially scared a few of us(especially the young ones - EE110 horror ) with his ppt which looked like 20-25 slides (full of text!) but thankfully as the evening progressed they only seemed to get us more interested in what was happening in IITM.

1. During his term he plans to increase IITM's focus on improving its research capabilities and making sure all IITM students have all the necessary skills to make themselves priced and valued commodities for the industry. (IIT's USP)
2. Making students learning experience more diverse and letting them realize what they wish to aim & achieve in future. (Stats: 25% purely interested in academics, 25% in sports, lit-soc, etc, 50% others) IITians need not necessarily become industry leaders everywhere, but they need to continue there role as "gears" of innovation in the future as well.
3. The focus of his ppt revolved largely around how IITM is improving its current infrastructure(focus on importance of new labs and purchase of other necessary equipment along with a few examples of sponsored research), and how IITM is recruiting faculty (target around 40+(per year) for next few years) and how it is encouraging more PhD's(with shorter PG duration of 4-4.5 years) and how it is actively pursuing MoU's with foreign universities of equal stature.
4. "Which college would I want to join in India if not the IIT's?" - referring to the student's apathy of not having too many colleges of international stature within India.
5. Q & A went off smoothly with the Director conveying subtly that JEE, MHRD, Coaching institutes, ISEET, College-cut-off's & other related issues(including media) are not IITM's priority challenges. >> Our focus & challenge is simply on producing world class research, students who can make a difference in the industry and 'Catering to existing Industry's/Society's problems'.

In short, during the event, the Director, a professor himself, relied largely on the strength of numbers & statistics to convey his message/vision of IITM to the alumni.

Some Quotes/Phrases: "True-untrue", "We are not MIT, we are IIT", "To be successful, you don't necessarily need the IIT tag".

Note: No Chicken's were harmed during the making of this event. Dinner was Veg. :)

Attendance Highlight: Godavari Hostel's 3rd Wing had the maximum attendance from any wing of IITM 10% of all participants.

Regards,

--

Mahek

IITM Director - Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi Visit - Hyderabad Alumni

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDRTbjNwaVlfTGNBaTA3ZDdiYlZhREE6MQ Feb 25 - IITM Director - Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi Visit - Hyderabad Alumni

Sanskuti School

Please check .

www.sanskrutishikhar.org
It's a school for disabled children.

Regards,
Mahek

RAMANAN NO MORE......

This morning (sunday, 13th June) i woke up early in my daughter's home in Chicago and logged in to check my mails. It has become a habit of sort to start the day with ramanan's mails to paniit yahoo group. And his mails are as refreshing, if not more, as the first cup of coffee.
So, when i saw the one liner from Ramesh, i just couldn't beleive it. For a few seconds i thought someone was pulling a fast one. I read that mail again and also the others on the subject. Finally, it sank in, that our dear ramanan is no more.
I hardly knew him on a one to one basis. Last time i met him was perhaps at the ISB meet a couple of years back. But, he had become a friend close to my heart, through his regular mails to the paniit. I enjoyed his style of writing, his wit and sense of humour, his ability to laugh at one's own plight, his deep conviction on social issues, his never say die spirit, his wisdom on display through his understanding of various issues.
Sometimes, i used to write to him, one to one on issues and opinions and he used to reply promptly. He used to address me 'Sir' , showing his culture and respect to me because i was his senior. Ramanan, in short, was a very dear friend.
He is said to have died in his sleep-- what we call 'anayasa maranam' , death in that way comes only to those whom Gods love dearly. The sudden death is a shock to his family and friends.
Dear friend, knowing your spirit, i am sure, you would be busy up there, spreading joy and message to those who are around you.
Dear friend, our group will never be the same without you and you would be missed by all of us everytime we read or write a mail in our group. You would live on in our memories for a long time to come.
This is my humble, inadequate, tearful homage to you.
MAY YOUR SOUL REST IN PEACE.

D.S.RAO

IITM - The Hindu - Mentoring Session @ May 15th

Written by Ramanan R, Spokes Person of PAN IIT HYD Alumni Society:

IITMAA & The Hindu organised a counseling program in Hyderabad yesterday, the 15th May. An amazing over 1000 turned up - may be more. Even the balcony in Ravindra Bharati was full.

Many Senior Alumnus spent the morning explaining, what to expect of each branch of engg & the key skills required. Then they answered wide range of questions.

There technical questions, questions on career prospects, how to plan a career, and was there even a questions on physical handicap. To which Sridhar answered that only very few cannot be surmounted - like colour blindness in aircraft certification.

Many dropped guard and used language they would use in the campus. Dr.Venugopal started off with - I am an IITian, so expect me to talk about myself first then the subject. That had the whole hall in splits.

The credits for the organisation were shared by Murali who lead along with many others like Srinivas, Praveen, Vasu, Kishore and many volunteers. It was an absolutely professional job with a bunch of researchers sitting in the background with their laptops picking up data from the internet to back up experiences of the counselors.

The Hindu is putting up all the presentation on their website.

http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/16/stories/2010051660790200.htm

An insight into engineering and its careers

R. Ravikanth Reddy

Alumni of prestigious institutions interact with IIT and NIT aspirants

— Photo: Nagara Gopal

Expert guidance: Resource persons at an interactive workshop held by The Hindu Education Plus interacting with students and their parents on Saturday.

Hyderabad: Follow your dreams and excellence, and not money, was the advice for the IIT and NIT aspirants from the distinguished alumni of those prestigious institutions even as they gave an insight into engineering as a course and a variety of options it throws up in terms of academics and careers.

Strong basics

The alumni were addressing the IIT and NIT aspirants at the counselling session organised by The Hindu Education Plus in association with Gajendra Circle, a subset of IIT Madras Alumni Association here on Saturday. The programme was inaugurated by the Hyderabad district Collector, Gulzar Natarajan. The event was sponsored by State Bank of India. Demystifying the IIT education, the galaxy of speakers, who are mostly successful entrepreneurs in India and abroad now, said the difference between IIT and NIT engineering from others is that students get to compete with the best in the country while having access to highly qualified teachers and world-class facilities. The brand name of IIT that gives them recognition across the globe is an added advantage for the job seekers or entrepreneurs. Whatever the course might be, students need to acquire strong basics in the core subjects.

The evergreen engineering courses like mechanical, civil and chemical will continue to provide newer and better opportunities to students in the job market, they said. “Whatever course the students take up, it all boils down to the hard work and effort the student puts to achieve excellence,” they said.

K. Ramchandra Reddy, CEO and co-founder of MosChip Semiconductor Technology pointed out that to be an ideal engineer a student should be willing to go beyond the course work. He said electronics engineers will have bright future with the ever expanding gadget market and innovations in it.

Civil Engineers will always be in demand in a growing economy like India, said R. V. Chakrapani, Managing Director of Aarvee Associates. India will see investments of Rs. 17 lakh crore in infrastructure projects in the next five years and it showcases the demand for civil engineers. Firm grip on basics, logical and analytical skills, visualisation, ability to work in a tea and social awareness are required to become a good civil engineer.

P. Venugopalan, Director, Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) who introduced students to Mechanical Engineering explained the opportunities in both private and government sector. Be strong in physics, maths and sciences because they form the basics, he said adding that Mechanical was the base of all core engineering subjects.

Computer jobs

About six million computer jobs will be available in the next five years said, Santanu Paul, CEO of TalentSprint explaining opportunities in the software sector. He wanted the students to follow excellence and a bright future will be assured. Specialisation subjects in computers like artificial intelligence, computer architecture, computer graphics and robotics will be in huge demand.

Nagesh S. Walimbe, founder of Zen Consultants said ideal chemical engineers should be passionate about chemistry, mechanical and bio-chemistry. “Clear concepts in chemistry, physics and maths are mandatory. Being an industry that has elements of chemistry, mechanical and biochemistry, you need to like these subjects to excel,” he said.

A knowledge panel consisting of Prof. Kesav Vithal Nori, Prof. P. Sriram, H.S. Kalsi, G. Sreedhar, V.A.Srinivasan, K.V. Ramana, Venkatesh – all distinguished alumni from IIT, and Ajay Antony answered questions of students. Neeta C. Rao, deputy manager of State Bank of India provided detailed information on education loans and special schemes available to IIT and NIT students.

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Two good news!

We are registered society now!

PAN IIT Alumni, Hyderabad! (name issue being resolved, earlier we were PAN IIT Hyderabad)

and our website is up!

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