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Greetings!
Through this newsletter, we intend to build on our relationship with IIT Alumni across the world. We hope it will become an important vehicle for networking.
In this edition, we introduce Sid Chowdhary as the incoming vice-president of Pan IIT USA, Inc. Sid has been actively associated with the IIT alumni movement for some time and is leading the effort of chapter development in North America.
On the entertainment front, we bring you the developing story of Anoop Desai, son of an IIT Alumnus is one of the top nine contestants on American Idol. |
| Message from PAN IIT USA Chapter Development |
 As the incoming Vice-President and Secretary of the PAN IIT USA Board, I want to share our plans related to the Chapter Development efforts. Our focus for 2009-2010 is to help mobilize the U.S. based Alumni, specifically through the Chapter Development activities. Our goals are to support individual Chapter development and initiatives; create synergies and alignment between Pan IIT and Chapters; and create a vibrant base of IIT Alumni who are active in their Chapters.
If you are part of the leadership of your local IIT Chapter and want to get to learn about how your Chapter can benefit from the PAN IIT initiatives and/or if you would like to engage with the PAN IIT Chapter Development efforts, we would love to hear from you. In addition, if your region has a base of IIT alumni and would benefit from creating a local chapter, or if you are new to your area and want to join the local PAN IIT Alumni Chapter, please contact us.
Siddhartha Chowdhary
Vice President and Secretary, PAN IIT USA
Washington, DC
chapters@iit.org
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Upcoming Pan-IIT Chapter Events in April 2009
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Cerritos, California - April 1st, 6:00 pm
Southern California TiE and SoCal IIT Alumni Association invite you to an evening with Nandan M. Nilekani - IIT Bombay Alumnus and Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors, Infosys Technologies Limited, and his Book Signing Event. Register for this event which is scheduled on April 1, 2009 in Cerritos, California starting at 6:00 PM. The location is the Sheraton Hotel, 12725 Center Court Drive, Cerritos, CA -90703. Click here to register.
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| Warren Buffett praises IIT Kharagpur Alumnus |
With speculation doing the rounds, Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group head and Ajit Jain might well be the heir-apparent to the 'Oracle from Omaha'. The intensity of the speculation for the coveted seat hit the top with Warren Buffett admitting to having made some "dumb decisions" and in turn showering praises on Ajit Jain, the 22-year Berkshire veteran well known for his "extraordinary talent and discipline" Ajit Jain graduated from IIT Kharagpur in 1972 with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. After working in IBM, India between 1973 and 1976, he came to the U.S., where he completed his MBA from Harvard prior to joining Mckinsey & Co. In 1986, Ajit Jain left McKinsey to work with the Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group and has served the company since then. |
Anoop Desai: An "American Idol" in the making
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Anoop Desai, fondly known as 'Noop Dog, son of IIT Alumnus, Manoj Desai, is the second Indian American who has made it to the top nine in " American Idol". Anoop first auditioned in Kansas City and was selected to go to the "Hollywood round". There, after a week of auditions he was chosen as one of 36 semi finalists. Anoop is a master's student at the University of North Carolina (UNC). He graduated from East Chapel Hill High School and UNC Chapel Hill. While at Chapel Hill he was a member of the a capella group Clef Hangers and he won the Carolina Scholar and Chancellor's awards. He also served as the music director of the group in his junior year and as its president in his senior year. The group has recorded two CDs which contain selections featuring Anoop as a soloist. Both CDs have earned acclaim from the larger college acapella community. |
| Party by IIT alumni to try its luck in upcoming Lok Sabha polls |
Bharat Punarnirman Dal (BDP), a political party floated by IIT alumni and other professionals will field its candidates from 40 parliamentary constituencies across India in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The party has also finalized candidates for Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Varanasi, East Delhi, South Delhi, Hyderabad and Bhubaneswar.
Ajit Ashwalayan Shukla, an M.Tech from IIT Bombay, who is currently the BDP national president, stated that the party will contest from at least 20 seats in Uttar Pradesh and 40 seats across the country on the issue of good governance, restoration of ethics in politics and opposition to caste based reservation.
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| Army Engineer named Federal Engineer of the Year |
 Dr. Kirankumar Topudurti has been named 2009 Federal Engineer of the Year (FEYA) by the National Society of Professional Engineers for his work on decontaminating groundwater. Dr. Topudurti is the deputy director for the Champaign, Illinois-based Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL), part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Engineer Research and Development Center.
Topudurti completed a master's degree in civil engineering at the IIT Kanpur. He came to the U.S. in 1984 on a full scholarship from the Illinois Institute of Technology at Chicago, wherein he pursued environmental engineering with hazardous waste engineering and management as his key study areas.
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| President's Corner Column |
 A new executive committee for Pan IIT USA, Inc. began its two year term in January, 2009. You will get to meet each of the members over the next few issues and I am the President. I have been associated in various ways with the Pan IIT movement since 2001 and readers of this newsletter may have seen my name last year. We take over from a series of very able leaders (including Dilip Venkatachari, Suresh Shenoy, Hiten Ghosh, and Abhay Bhushan) and under a governance system that includes U.S.-based leaders of each of the seven IITs that have alumni.
Our focus this year is "FAT" or Frugality, Aggressive plans and Transparency. As trustees of the valuable brand of IIT alumni and of over $200,000 in funds, our budget and board minutes are posted at http://iit.org/about-iit/paniit-org/board-of-directors-pan-iit-inc.-usa-1/folder.2009-01-25.2062178064. That is the transparency part.
We are frugal, in the sense that we have slashed our budget dramatically from the past year, to live within our means in these tough economic times. But our plans are aggressive and you will see that in the work of each of the committee members. Our focus as the executive committee is on helping alumni. We know that if we do this, alumni will step up and help their respective IITs and their local communities.
While our funding source and legal status is American, many of Pan IIT USA Inc's services benefit alumni worldwide. Feel free to participate in our conversations, regardless of where you live.
Gunjan Bagla
President, PAN IIT USA, Inc
Cerritos, California
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| Pan IIT 2009 Global Conference, Chicago, October 9-11 2009 |
Entrepreneurship and Innovation Highlighted
Since its inception in 2003, the IIT Global Alumni Conference has been a premier business event, bringing together industry visionaries, thought leaders and IIT alumni from across the globe. The Pan IIT 2009 USA conference is to be held in Chicago, from 9-11th October 2009 at the Schaumburg Convention Center. The main theme of this conference is "Entrepreneurship and Innovation in a Global Economy." Keynote speakers for the conference would include eminent industrialists, politicians, academicians and media personnel from across the globe, IIT 2009 promises to be the biggest one yet. The conference will be a unique forum to meet industry leaders, re-establish old bonds, and network with fellow alumni and their families. You may click here to complete the process of registration.For more information about the conference, volunteering and sponsorship opportunities, please visit http://paniit2009.org/sponsors |
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IIT Alumnus - Your Profile |
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Thank you to many alumni who updated their profiles through this link already. Some alumni have emailed us their changes, however, to preserve data integrity and security we recommend you update your own profile information. Review your information below and update, if needed by clicking on the "Update Profile/Email Address" link in the footer at the bottom of this email. You can also update your email address via this process.
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If you'd like to contribute a short IIT related story or article to be published in the newsletter, please send a 200 or 250 word writeup to "iitalum1@gmail.com". Include your contact information and a photo about the event in your email.
Sincerely,
Newsletter Chair: Amita Suhrid
Newsletter Co-Chair: Smita Goel Bagla
PanIIT USA Inc.
Alumni Association of Indian Institutes of Technology
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