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Greetings!
Contributions of IIT Alumni from around the world have always been been on a vast spectrum.
Alumni continue to make the news with high achievements and pleasant surprises both in Indian and the worldwide community.
Shubhra Saxena, an IITR alumnus, is the UPSC topper and top search "text string" according to Google India. IIT Kanpur Alumnus, Prem Das Rai has been elected to be a part of the newest Indian Cabinet with Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. Another IITB alumnus, Jairam Ramesh has been elevated to be minister of state with independent charge.
Many alumni continue to be recognized for their commitments and contributions to quality and environmentally safe discoveries. Recently, we lost one of leaders of IIT Alumni, Dr. Rajeev Motwani, who was the brain behind Google.
Starting in this issue, we bring two new exciting feature additions to our newsletter -
1) an interview of a prominent IIT alum, who has been instrumental in the growth of the Pan IIT movement in the USA. This issue's interviewee is Umang Gupta.
2) a Career Advice column - where we will feature most asked questions from IIT alumnus and answers/advice from various accomplished IIT alumnus from all over the USA.
See detailed articles for more information.
Friends, forward this newsletter to your other alumni friends and acquaintances to encourage them to sign up for the newsletter as well as join the IIT Alumni LinkedIn group. Our newsletter readership is now over 14,000 worldwide and to subscribe, just click on "join our mailing list". There are now more than 10,000 members on our IIT Alumni Group on LinkedIn.com (which makes us the most powerful college alumnus group assembled on LinkedIn! ). If you wish to join the LinkedIn group, fill out a complete profile including your specific IIT degree and then click to apply for membership, you must be a graduate of one of the 7 Indian Institutes of Technology.
We strive to bring you the ariticles that are of interest to you. If you have any article that will be of interest to the general PanIIT Alumni community or suggestions on what else you'd like to see in the newsletter, do drop us an email on iitalum1@gmail.com.
Sincerely,
Amita Suhrid, IITK 83, Newsletter Chair Smita Goel Bagla, IITK 84, IITR 86 Newsletter Co-Chair |
| Interview with PAN IIT USA Chairperson - Umang Gupta |
 In this newsletter we bring you an interview with Mr Umang Gupta (IITK-72) to understand his personal motivation in being a key part of the Alumni organization as well as his thoughts and guidance to IIT alumnus in this struggling economy.
Umang is a very successful entrepreneur as well as enthusiastic leader in the PANIIT community. He is the chairman of PanIIT Board USA.
Since 1997, Umang has led Keynote systems as its Chairman of the Board and CEO. His successes include Gupta Corporation which was the first Indian-American founded software company to go public in the world. He has held various positions with Oracle Corporation and IBM.
In addition to his professional success, Umang and his wife Ruth are dedicated to their family and to their community. They have served and generously donated to several nonprofit organizations.
Umang's driving force towards this organization were " first, a sense of altruism as I wanted to give back to the IITs, and second, to recreate the camaraderie that existed during my IIT days. I still feel that the best years of my life were my 5 years at IIT. The friendships and the relationships I built during that time were ever lasting."
When asked about his advice for our entrepreneur readers in this economic climate where capital is a challenge, Umang said, "the necessary ingredient for success to entrepreneurs is not always easy access to capital." He further added, "if you have a good idea, desire and ambition to make it happen, then you'll find a way to make it work". Umang pointed out that both academic intelligence and emotional intelligence are essential qualities of an emerging leader and the keys for good leadership.
To read Umang's full interview please click here (http://iit.org/interviews/umang_gupta)
Note:
The interview was conducted by Amita Suhrid(Devry University), Sanjeev Arora (Pipal Research) and Smita Goel Bagla (Amritt, Inc.)
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| Shubhra Saxena- Top name searched in Google India? |
Google Trends India reveals that Shubra has been the most sought after search term on their site when the results were announced outclassing even the IPL points table or other leading Indian personalities from Bollywood or Cricket
Shubhra Saxena, IIT Roorkee alumnus, is the topper of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examination for 2008. Her goal is to empower the rural masses and provide education to them.
Shubhra's success at the UPSC had put her on top with web users in India. Google Trends India reveals that she has been the most after search term on their site when the results were announced outclassing even the IPL points table or other leading Indian personalities from Bollywood or cricket.
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Member of Cabinet - Jairam Ramesh &
Member of Parliament - Prem Das Rai
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Jairam Ramesh, an IIT B alumnus, is an MP representing Andhra Pradesh in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament. He is the incumbent Minister of State for Department of Environment and Forests. Earlier he was also the Minister of State for Commerce and Industry as well as the Minister of State for Power in the current Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. While he had two sets of offices in the Commerce and Power
ministries, Ramesh did not have the kind of big staff, ministers are used to.
He would rather work on his lap top even as he listened to soothing music in
glass-door transparent office decorated with ethnic furniture.
Also,as the first-ever
IIT-IIMer in the Lok Sabha, Prem Das Rai, IIT Kanpur alumnus, has been elected to the 15th Lok Sabha as the
lone member from Sikkim. Rai hopes to contribute his bit to changing
the way Parliament and MPs are viewed in the country. Sikkim Democratic Front MP, who early in his
career chucked a cushy job as a multinational banker and later gave up
opportunities in the US in favor of returning to his home state, Sikkim. He says "I look at the entire IIT-IIM community as part
of my support system. We have a very strong network. Through it I would be able
to funnel a lot of intellectual capital. Then there is the skill set. In IITs
and IIMs, you develop a certain way of learning, analysis and presentation.
These would be handy in Parliament." |
Sad news about Dr. Motwani
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The news of Professor Rajeev Motwani's untimely death
on June 5, Friday afternoon spread quickly throughout the the tech community of Silicon Valley. Motwani had influenced hundreds of entrepreneurs
and students. Google founder Sergey Brin, describes Motwani as his "friend and teacher," also wrote a tribute on his blog:
Remembering Rajeev
" It is with great sadness that I write
about the passing of my teacher and good friend Professor Rajeev
Motwani. ... Officially, Rajeev was not my advisor, and yet he played just as big
a role in my research, education, and professional development. In
addition to being a brilliant computer scientist, Rajeev was a very
kind and amicable person and his door was always open. .. When my interest turned to data mining, Rajeev helped to coordinate
a regular meeting group on the subject. Even though I was just one of
hundreds of graduate students in the department, he always made the
time and effort to help. ...
Eventually, as Google emerged from Stanford, Rajeev remained a
friend and advisor.
His legacy and personality
lives on in the students, projects, and companies he has touched.
Today, whenever you use a piece of technology, there is a good chance a
little bit of Rajeev Motwani is behind it.
Dr. Rajeev motwani will be missed by all the IIT alumni who had the pleasure of meeting him.
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| Anil to collect Global Sustainability Forum award on behalf of NARI |
 Anil K Rajvanshi, an IIT Kanpur alumnus, has been directly involved in a whole spectrum of areas affecting the lives of India's rural population which include cooking and lighting, small power generation, water purification and effluent treatment through the use of renewable energy. Anil will receive the Globe Forum Award 2009 award from H.R.H. Swedish Crown Princess Victoria on June 3rd, 2009 in Sweden, on behalf of the Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI). NARI has developed a light source which runs on locally produced fuel, is environmentally friendly and produces bright light equivalent to that from a 100 W electric bulb. This lantern also doubles up as a cooking stove thereby solving the twin problem of cooking and lighting for rural households. NARI is the first anywhere to propose and develop a dual purpose lantern running on 55-60% ethanol-water mixture.
Besides his engineering work Anil is also involved in studies of human consciousness and has published a book entitled "Nature of Human Thought". He believes that sustainability, technology and spirituality go hand in hand and writes extensively on these issues. |
| Career Coach! |
| We are starting a new column for your questions from experienced and accomplished IIT alumnus who have been successful entrepreneurs, acamedicians and leading professionals. One question will be selected, answered and published in the newsletter. Please send your questions to careeradvise@iit.org
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| Pan IIT 2009 Global Conference, Chicago, October 9-11 2009 |
To register for the conference please visit http://paniit2009.org/participants/registration.
To sponsor an event or exhibit your successes contact Aditya.Nath@paniit2009.org.
For media partnership please contact Piyush.Agrawal@paniit2009.org.
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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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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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